men are, as well as hear what they have been. I know nothing better, then, under the sun, than still to be doing with our hand what our hand findeth to do, and always to be busily employed in such work as suits our years, even when we are approaching the last bourn of all the human race, beyond which there is neither knowledge nor device; and by persevering in this, none of us shall bring down our grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

It is not to be expected that a man labouring under a load of years, and constantly shewing that he is unable to bear it, can be a good companion to the young, the giddy, and the volatile. It is in vain to look for sympathy or respect where there is so much dissimilarity both in temper and years. We old men look on the actions of the young as foolish, and their pursuits as frivolous; while they consider our maxims as tinctured more with the peevishness than the wisdom of

age. For this very reason I like to make friends and companions of those who are forty years my juniors. I thus renew the youth of my mind, and have attachments growing upon me as my old friends drop away. I try to make young men be in love with old age before they arrive at it, and shew them that happiness and hilarity are not confined to the young. I also find many occasions of infusing the experience of age under the guise of equality; for, unless piqued by insolence or vulgarity, I never in conversation set myself above the humblest individual.

After all, I do not see why young people should not be entertained, nor do I believe they are at all incapable of being entertained, with the conversation and gaiety of an old man. When I make them forget my age, I forget it also myself. I account it an essential duty, and I am sure it is a source of great happiness, to break down, as much as possible, the jealousies which are apt to subsist

between the young and the old. They are afraid of our peevishness, and we are afraid of their frivolity. But let us always be satisfied that we meet on equal terms, and then they will love our cheerfulness, they will be flattered by our attentions, they will attain at an easy rate the experience which has cost us dear, and perhaps acquire a more sedate and manly character by the apothegms of

age.

I advise every man advanced in age, therefore, to begin now and continue on, however old, this happy expedient of stepping back to the scenes which you have left, and mingling occasionally with the enchanting circles of innocence and youth, especially if you have any thing in your countenance or manners which invites all the young people of the families in which you visit to flock about you, hang about you, and use every familiarity with you. This is delightful, and an infallibly good sign of an old man; for it is

a curious fact, that children are the best judges of character at first sight in the world. There is an old Scots proverb,

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They're never cannie that dogs an' bairns dinna like;" and there is not a more true one in the whole collection. "Let no such man be trusted."

No man needs to fear the tediousness and insipidity of old age, provided his soul be kept in proper subjection to the will of his Creator. I am often surprised at seeing decent, respectable old men incessantly amused with trifling games, repeated almost in the same manner for a thousand times. I am addicted to some of these myself; but at that I do not wonder; for there is a principle in my constitution that requires constant excitement.

The book of nature, and especially those pages of it in which the human mind is delineated in its various attitudes and exertions, is the choicest study of man at any period of his life. It is good

for us to know ourselves; but the minds of other men are a sort of mirror which reflects our own image; and you will always find, that as you know other men more, you will be the better acquainted with yourself. Add to this, that when we have advanced to a certain period of life, our minds may be grown to their full size; and though we do our best in retaining and polishing what we have collected, or in substituting the results of the understanding in the room of the force and play of the fancy, yet we must confess that, with respect to some powers of our mind, we are a little on the decline. In this stage, if a man seclude himself wholly from the world, his understanding will grow rigid, his philosophy antiquated, and his maxims and expressions quite unfashionable. Let us, then, live in the world while we are in it; for it is better to keep pace with the times; and, since we have always one door by which we can return to the