THE SEXAGENARIAN. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old, with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? SHAKSPEARE. THERE he goes-in his long russet surtoutsweeping down yonder gravel-walk beneath the trees, like a yellow leaf in autumn, wafted along by a fitful gust of wind. Now he pauses;-now seems to be whirled round in an eddy,—and now rustles and brushes onward again. He is talking to himself in an under-tone as usual,-and flourishes a pinch of snuff between his fore-finger and his thumb,-ever and anon drumming on the cover of his box by way of emphasis, with a sound like the tap of a woodpecker. He always takes a morning walk in the garden,-in fact, I may say he passes a greater part of the day there, either strolling up and down the gravel-walks, or sitting on a rustic bench in one of the leafy arbours. He always wears that same dress, too; at least, I have never seen him in any other;-a bell-crowned hat—a frilled bosom, and white dimity vest, soiled with snuff--light nankeen smalls,—and, over all, that long and flowing surtout of russet-brown Circassian, hanging in wrinkles round his slender body, and toying with his thin rakish legs. Such is his constant garb, morning and evening; and it gives him a cool and breezy look, even in the heat of a noonday in August. The personage sketched in the preceding paragraph is Monsieur d'Argentville, a sexagenarian, with whom I became acquainted during my residence at the Maison de Santé of Auteuil. I found him there, and left him there. Nobody knew when he came-he had been there from time immemorial,--nor when he was going away-for he himself did not know,-nor what ailed him-for though he was always complaining, yet he grew neither better nor worse-never consulted the physician, and ate voraciously three times a day. At table he was rather peevish, troubled his neigh bours with his elbows, and uttered the monosyl |