compass, is yet unbounded in its desires. The more it has, the more it craves. Neither gold nor silver nor any other earthly possession can ever satisfy it. But when it is once laid in the grave and covered with a little earth, there is an end to its lust and ambition." Shakspeare's well-known masterly description of the Seven Ages of Man, which he puts into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques (As You Like It, ii, 7), was anticipated by Rabbi Simon, the son of Eliezer, in this Talmudic description of The Seven Stages of Human Life. Seven times in one verse did the author of Ecclesiastes make use of the word vanity, in allusion to the seven stages of human life.1 The first commences in the first year of human existence, when the infant lies like a king on a soft couch, with numerous attendants about him, all ready to serve him, and eager to testify their love and attachment by kisses and embraces. The second commences about the age of two or three years, when the darling child is permitted to crawl on the ground, and, like an unclean animal, delights in dirt and filth. 1 Eccles., i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the singular, making altogether seven. S Then at the age of ten, the thoughtless boy, without reflecting on the past or caring for the future, jumps and skips about like a young kid on the enamelled green, contented to enjoy the present moment. The fourth stage begins about the age of twenty, when the young man, full of vanity and pride, begins to set off his person by dress; and, like a young unbroken horse, prances and gallops about in search of a wife. Then comes the matrimonial state, when the poor man, like a patient ass, is obliged, however reluctantly, to toil and labour for a living. Behold him now in the parental state, when surrounded by helpless children craving his support and looking to him for bread. He is as bold, as vigilant, and as fawning, too, as the faithful dog; guarding his little flock, and snatching at everything that comes in his way, in order to provide for his offspring. At last comes the final stage, when the decrepit old man, like the unwieldy though most sagacious elephant, becomes grave, sedate, and distrustful. He then also begins to hang down his head towards the ground, as if surveying the place where all his vast schemes must terminate, and where ambition and vanity are finally humbled to the dust. But the Talmudist, in his turn, was forestalled by Bhartrihari, an ancient Hindú sage, one of whose three hundred apothegms has been thus rendered into English by Sir Monier Williams: Now for a little while a child; and now And wrinkled frame, man creeps towards the end Here, however, the Indian philosopher describes human life as consisting of only four scenes; but, like our own Shakspeare, he compares the world to a stage and man to a player. An epigram preserved in the Anthologia also likens the world to a theatre and human life to a drama: This life a theatre we well may call, Where every actor must perform with art; It is surely both instructive and interesting thus to discover resemblances in thought and expression in the writings of men of comprehensive intellect, who lived in countries and in times far apart. VI WISE SAYINGS OF THE RABBIS. "CONCISE sentences," says Bacon, "like darts, fly abroad and make impressions, while long discourses are flat things, and not regarded." And Seneca has remarked that "even rude and uncultivated minds are struck, as it were, with those short but weighty sentences which anticipate all reasoning by flashing truths upon them at once." Wise men in all ages seem to have been fully aware of the advantage of condensing into pithy sentences the results of their observations of the course of human life; and the following selection of sayings of the Jewish Fathers, taken from the Pirke Aboth (the 41st treatise of the Talmud, compiled by Nathan of Babylon, A.D. 200), and other sources, will be found to be quite as sagacious as the aphorisms of the most celebrated philosophers of India and Greece: This world is like an ante-chamber in comparison with the world to come; prepare thyself in the antechamber, therefore, that thou mayest enter into the dining-room. Be humble to a superior, and affable to an inferior, and receive all men with cheerfulness. Be not scornful to any, nor be opposed to all things; for there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything which hath not its place. Attempt not to appease thy neighbour in the time of his anger, nor comfort him in the time when his dead is lying before him, nor ask of him in the time of his vowing, nor desire to see him in the time of his calamity.1 1 "Do not," says Nakhshabí, "try to move by persuasion the soul that is afflicted with grief. The heart that is overwhelmed with the billows of sorrow will, by slow degrees, return to itself." Hold no man responsible for his utterances in times of grief. Who gains wisdom? He who is willing to receive instruction from all sources. Who is rich? He who is content with his lot. Who is deserving of honour? He who honoureth mankind. Who is the mighty man? He who subdueth his temper.1 When a liar speaks the truth, he finds his punishment in being generally disbelieved. The physician who prescribes gratuitously gives a worthless prescription. He who hardens his heart with pride softens his brains with the same. The day is short, the labour vast; but the labourers are still slothful, though the reward is great, and the Master presseth for despatch.2 He who teacheth a child is like one who writeth on new paper; and he who teacheth old people is like one who writeth on blotted paper.3 1 "He who subdueth his temper is a mighty man," says the Talmudist; and Solomon had said so before him: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city" (Prov. xvi, 32). A curious parallel to these words is found in an ancient Buddhistic work, entitled Buddha's Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue, as follows: "If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors." (Professor Max Müller's translation, prefixed to Buddhagosha's Parables, translated by Captain Rogers.) 2 Cf. Saádí, ante, page 41, "Life is snow," etc. 3 Locke was anticipated not only by the Talmudist, as above, but long before him by Aristotle, who termed the infant soul tabula rasa, which was in all likelihood borrowed by the author of the Persian work on the practical philosophy of the Muhammedans, entitled |