Chapter CLXXXIII

VIEWS OF OLD AGE, MONTAGNE, DANIEL CORNEILLE, LANGUET, PASQUIER, DR. JOHNSON, LORD CHESTERFIELD, ST. EVREMOND.

What is age
But the holy place of life, the chapel of ease
For all men's wearied miseries?

MASSINGER.

Montagne takes an uncomfortable view of old age. _Il me semble_, he says, _qu'en la vieillesse, nos ames sont subjectes à des maladies et imperfections plus importunes qu'en la jeunesse. Je le disois estant jeune, lors on me donnoit de mon menton par le nez; je le dis encore à cette heure, que mon poil gris me donne le credit. Nous appellons sagesse la difficulté de nos humeurs, le desgoust des choses presentes: mais à la verité, nous ne quittons pas tant les vices, comme nous les changeons; et, à mon opinion, en pis. Outre une sotte et caduque fierté, un babil ennuyeux, ces humeures espineuses et inassociables, et la superstition, et un soin ridicule des richesses, lors que l'usage en est perdu, j'y trouve plus d'envie, d'injustice, et de malignité. Elle nous attache plus de rides en l'esprit qu'au visage: et ne se void point d'ames ou fort rares, qui en vieillissant ne sentent l'aigre, et le moisi._

Take this extract, my worthy friends who are not skilled in French, or know no more of it than a Governess may have taught you,—in the English of John Florio, Reader of the Italian tongue unto the Sovereign Majesty of Anna, Queen of England, Scotland, &c. and one of the gentlemen of her Royal privy chamber, the same Florio whom some commentators upon very insufficient grounds, have supposed to have been designed by Shakespere in the Holofernes of Love's Labour's Lost.

“Methinks our souls in age are subject unto more importunate diseases and imperfections than they are in youth. I said so being young, when my beardless chin was upbraided me, and I say it again, now that my gray beard gives me authority. We entitle wisdom, the frowardness of our humours, and the distaste of present things; but in truth we abandon not vices so much as we change them; and in mine opinion for the worse. Besides a silly and ruinous pride, cumbersome tattle, wayward and unsociable humours, superstition, and a ridiculous carking for wealth, when the use of it is well nigh lost. I find the more envy, injustice and malignity in it. It sets more wrinkles in our minds than in our foreheads, nor are there any spirits, or very rare ones, which in growing old taste not sourly and mustily.”

In the same spirit, recollecting perhaps this very passage of the delightful old Gascon, one of our own poets says,

Old age doth give by too long space,
Our souls as many wrinkles as our face;

and the same thing, no doubt in imitation of Montagne has been said by Corneille in a poem of thanks addressed to Louis XIV., when that King had ordered some of his plays to be represented during the winter of 1685, though he had ceased to be a popular writer,

_Je vieillis, ou du moins, ils se le persuadent;
Pour bien écrire encor j'ai trop long tems écrit,
Et les rides du front passent jusqu' à l'esprit._

The opinion proceeded not in the poet Daniel from perverted philosophy, or sourness of natural disposition, for all his affections were kindly, and he was a tender-hearted, wise, good man. But he wrote this in the evening of his days, when he had

out lived the date
Of former grace, acceptance and delight,

when,

those bright stars from whence
He had his light, were set for evermore;

and when he complained that years had done to him

this wrong,
To make him write too much, and live too long;

so that this comfortless opinion may be ascribed in him rather to a dejected state of mind, than to a clear untroubled judgement. But Hubert Languet must have written more from observation and reflection than from feeling, when he said in one of his letters to Sir Philip Sidney, “you are mistaken if you believe that men are made better by age; for it is very rarely so. They become indeed more cautious, and learn to conceal their faults and their evil inclinations; so that if you have known any old man in whom you think some probity were still remaining, be assured that he must have been excellently virtuous in his youth.” _Erras si credis homines fieri ætate meliores; id nam est rarissimum. Fiunt quidem cautiores, et vitia animi, ac pravos suos affectus occultare discunt: quod si quem senem novisti in quo aliquid probitatis superesse judices, crede eum in adolescentiâ fuisse optimum._

Languet spoke of its effects upon others. Old Estienne Pasquier in that uncomfortable portion of his _Jeux Poëtiques_ which he entitles _Vieillesse Rechignée_ writes as a self-observer, and his picture is not more favourable.

_Je ne nourry dans moy qu'une humeur noire,
Chagrin, fascheux, melancholic, hagard,
Grongneux, despit, presomptueux, langard,
Je fay l'amour au bon vin et au boire._

But the bottle seems not to have put him in good humour either with others or himself.

_Tout la monde me put; je vy de telle sort,
Que je ne fay meshuy que tousser et cracher,
Que de fascher autruy, et d'autruy me fascher;
Je ne supporte nul, et nul ne me supporte.
Un mal de corps je sens, un mal d'esprit je porte;
Foible de corps je veux, mais je ne puis marcher;
Foible de esprit je n'oze à mon argent toucher,
Voilà les beaux effects que la vieillesse apporte!
O combien est heureux celuy qui, de ses ans
Jeune, ne passe point la fleur de son printans,
Ou celuy qui venu s'en retourne aussi vite!
Non: je m'abuze; ainçois ces maux ce sont appas
Qui me feront un jour trouver doux mon trespas,
Quand il plaira a Dieu que ce monde je quitte._

The miserable life I lead is such,
That now the world loathes me and I loathe it;
What do I do all day but cough and spit,
Annoying others, and annoyed as much!
My limbs no longer serve me, and the wealth
Which I have heap'd, I want the will to spend.
So mind and body both are out of health,
Behold the blessings that on age attend!
Happy whose fate is not to overlive
The joys which youth, and only youth can give,
But in his prime is taken, happy he!
Alas, that thought is of an erring heart,
These evils make me willing to depart
When it shall please the Lord to summon me.

The Rustic, in Hammerlein's curious dialogues _de Nobilitate et Rusticitate_, describes his old age in colours as dark as Pasquier's; _plenus dierum_, he says, _ymmo senex valde, id est, octogenarius, et senio confractus, et heri et nudiustercius, ymmo plerisque revolutionibus annorum temporibus, corporis statera recurvatus, singulto, tussito, sterto, ossito, sternuto, balbutio, catharizo, mussico, paraleso, gargariso, cretico, tremo, sudo, titillo, digitis sæpe geliso, et insuper (quod deterius est) cor meum affligitur, et caput excutitur, languet spiritus, fetet anhelitus, caligant oculi et facillant_[1] _articuli, nares confluunt, crines defluunt, tremunt tactus et deperit actus, dentes putrescunt et aures surdescunt; de facili ad iram provocor, difficili revocor, cito credo, tarde discedo._

[Footnote 1: _Facillant_ is here evidently the same as _vacillant_. For the real meaning of _facillo_ the reader is referred to Du Cange in v. or to Martinii Lexicon.]

The effects of age are described in language not less characteristic by the Conte Baldessar Castiglione in his Cortegiano. He is explaining wherefore the old man is always “_laudator temporis acti_;” and thus he accounts for the universal propensity;—_gli anni fuggendo se ne portan seco molte commodità, e tra l' altre levano dal sangue gran parte de gli spiriti vitali; onde la complession si muta, e divengon debili gli organi, per i quali l' anima opera le sue virtù. Però de i cori nostri in quel tempo, come allo autunno le fogli de gli arbori, caggiono i soavi fiori di contento; e nel loco de i sereni et chiari pensieri, entra la nubilosa e turbida tristitia di mille calamità compagnata, di modo che non solamente il corpo, ma l' animo anchora è infermo; ne de i passati piaceri reserva altro che una tenace memoria, e la imagine di quel caro tempo della tenera eta, nella quale quando ci troviamo, ci pare che sempre il cielo, e la terra, e ogni cosa faccia festa, e rida intorno à gli occhi nostri e nel pensiero, come in un delitioso et vago giardino, fiorisca la dolce primavera d' allegrezza: onde forse saria utile, quando gia nella fredda stagione comincia il sole della nostra vita, spogliandoci de quei piaceri, andarsene verso l' occaso, perdere insieme con essi anchor la lor memoria, e trovar_ (_come disse Temistocle_) _un' arte, che a scordar insegnasse; perche tanto sono fallaci i sensi del corpo nostro, che spesso ingannano anchora il giudicio della mente. Però parmi che i vecchi siano alla condition di quelli, che partendosi dal porto, tengon gli occhi in terra, e par loro che la nave stia ferma, e la riva si parta; e pur è il contrario; che il porto, e medesimamente il tempo, e i piaceri restano nel suo stato, e noi con la nave della mortalità fuggendo n' andiamo, l' un dopo l' altro, per quel procelloso mare che ogni cosa assorbe et devora; ne mai piu pigliar terra ci è concesso; anzi sempre da contrarii venti combattuti, al fine in qualche scoglio la nave rompemo._

Take this passage, gentle reader, as Master Thomas Hoby has translated it to my hand.

“Years wearing away carry also with them many commodities, and among others take away from the blood a great part of the lively spirits; that altereth the complection, and the instruments wax feeble whereby the soul worketh his effects. Therefore the sweet flowers of delight vade[2] away in that season out of our hearts, as the leaves fall from the trees after harvest; and instead of open and clear thoughts, there entereth cloudy and troublous heaviness, accompanied with a thousand heart griefs: so that not only the blood, but the mind is also feeble, neither of the former pleasures retaineth it any thing else but a fast memory, and the print of the beloved time of tender age, which when we have upon us, the heaven, the earth and each thing to our seeming rejoiceth and laugheth always about our eyes, and in thought (as in a savoury and pleasant garden) flourisheth the sweet spring time of mirth: So that peradventure, it were not unprofitable when now, in the cold season, the sun of our life, taking away from us our delights beginneth to draw toward the West, to lose therewithall the mindfulness of them, and to find out as Themistocles saith, an art to teach us to forget; for the senses of our body are so deceivable, that they beguile many times also the judgement of the mind. Therefore, methinks, old men be like unto them that sailing in a vessel out of an haven, behold the ground with their eyes, and the vessel to their seeming standeth still, and the shore goeth; and yet is it clean contrary, for the haven, and likewise the time and pleasures, continue still in their estate, and we with the vessel of mortality flying away, go one after another through the tempestuous sea that swalloweth up and devoureth all things, neither is it granted us at any time to come on shore again; but, always beaten with contrary winds, at the end we break our vessel at some rock.”

[Footnote 2: ‘Vade’ is no doubt the true word here. The double sense of it,—that is, to _fade_, or to _go away_,—may be seen in Todd's Johnson and in Nares' Glossary. Neither of them quote the following lines from the Earl of Surrey's Poems. They occur in his Ecclesiastes.

We, that live on the earth, draw toward our decay,
Our children fill our place awhile, and then they vade away.

And again,

New fancies daily spring, which vade, returning mo.]

“Why Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “a man grows better humoured as he grows older. He improves by experience. When young he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance. As he advances in life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things of little importance, and so he becomes more patient and better pleased.” This was the observation of a wise and good man, who felt in himself as he grew old, the effect of Christian principles upon a kind heart and a vigorous understanding. One of a very different stamp came to the same conclusion before him; _Crescit ætate pulchritudo animorum_, says, Antonio Perez, _quantum minuitur eorundem corporum venustas._

One more of these dark pictures. “The heart” says Lord Chesterfield, “never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. But should a bad young heart, accompanied with a good head, (which by the way, very seldom is the case) really reform, in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be thought prudential and political, but never sincere.”

It is remarkable that Johnson, though, as has just been seen, he felt in himself and saw in other good men, that the natural effect of time was to sear away asperities of character

Till the smooth temper of their age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree,

yet he expressed an opinion closely agreeing with this of Lord Chesterfield. “A man, he said, commonly grew wicked as he grew older, at least he but changed the vices of youth, head-strong passion and wild temerity, for treacherous caution and desire to circumvent.” These he can only have meant of wicked men. But what follows seems to imply a mournful conviction that the tendency of society is to foster our evil propensities and counteract our better ones: “I am always, he said, on the young people's side when there is a dispute between them and the old ones; for you have at least a charm for virtue, till age has withered its very root.” Alas, this is true of the irreligious and worldly-minded, and it is generally true because they composed the majority of our corrupt contemporaries.

But Johnson knew that good men became better as they grew older, because his philosophy was that of the Gospel. Something of a philosopher Lord Chesterfield was, and had he lived in the days of Trajan or Hadrian, might have done honour to the school of Epicurus. But if he had not in the pride of his poor philosophy shut both his understanding and his heart against the truths of revealed religion, in how different a light would the evening of his life have closed.

_Une raison essentielle_, says the Epicurean Saint Evremond, _qui nous oblige à nous retirer quand nous sommes vieux, c'est qu'il faut prevenir le ridicule où l'age nous fait tomber presque toujours._ And in another place he says, _certes le plus honnéte-homme dont personne n'a besoin, a de la peine a s'exempter du ridicule en vieillissant._ This was the opinion of a courtier, a sensualist, and a Frenchman.

I cannot more appositely conclude this chapter than by a quotation ascribed, whether truly or not, to St. Bernard. _Maledictum caput canum et cor vanum, caput tremulum et cor emulum, canities in vertice et pernicies in mente: facies rugosa et lingua nugosa, cutis sicca et fides ficta; visus caligans et caritas claudicans; labium pendens et dens detrahens; virtus debilis et vita flebilis; dies uberes et fructus steriles, amici multi, et actus stulti._