embitter the decline of life, we shall find enjoyments allotted to every period of our existence.

MR. LYTTELTON.

Let me then re

quest you to state the nature of those enjoyments, and the means of attaining them.

BISHOP HOUGH. I shall most willingly comply with your request. But in observing on the comforts provided for the close of life, you must not expect novelty. Much of what I shall have to say is derived from books, some part from conversation, other part from reflection: and the whole is so blended and amalgamated in my mind, that it will be hardly practicable to distinguish what I have borrowed, from my own pro

perty. Let therefore one acknowledgment serve for all. And again remember that while one of the pleasures of age is to be of use to others, that of hearing oneself chatter is another: I shall therefore strive to set a watch upon my tongue. Homer, you recollect, compares the prattle of Priam's aged counsellors, to the unceasing chirping of grasshoppers. But to proceed :—they who possess no resources within themselves, will find weariness and vexation in every period of life: for while the current of animal spirits is only to be kept up by the external stimulants of pleasure, vanity, pride, cupidity, and ambition, a degree of languor and listlessness must at times inevitably take place; and particularly in old age, when the sensual appetite being dimi

D

nished, the power of looking inwards for intellectual pleasure, becomes more and more essential to the well-being of the rational creature. The misfortune is, that if the mind be not adequately supplied with proper and rational objects, the seeds of envy, petulance, malice, sensuality, avarice, and revenge, will take root in the vacant space, and produce their harvest in the autumn of life. When, therefore, I am speaking of the enjoyments of the aged, I presume, that the prior life has been such as to merit enjoyment. The best and surest guard against the inconveniences of age, is to study through life the precepts of the Gospel, and to perform the duties it prescribes. The good seed thus sown, in the spring of life, will be abundantly productive of consolation, in every sub

sequent period: for it is not merely at the dying hour, but during every other portion of existence, and particularly in old age, that the memory of useful and benevolent exertions affords a source of gratification. On the contrary, what degree of comfort can an OLD MAN reasonably expect, who, at the close of this brief and chequered life, cannot console himself with the memory of any one duty fulfilled, either to God or man ?— who has applied, his talents and possessions to no one good or useful purpose; but has directed their concentrated power to the mean, solitary, and unworthy object of self-gratification!—I speak not of the comforts of such an old age. They who have provided no resources of intellect, and no traces of beneficence to individuals, or of services to the

community, have no claim to comfort at the close of life. The moral government of the Supreme Being would (if I may presume to use the expression) be impeached, if they who had attempted to live only to themselves,-were capable of calm and unqualified enjoyment in old age.

BISHOP GIBSON. I think, Bishop of Worcester, I can read in Mr. Lyttelton's countenance, that he feels very fully the force of your observations. Let us therefore request that, before you notice the positive comforts of age, you will advert to those inconveniences of advanced life, which are not the effects of misconduct, but the necessary concomitants of length of years.