M.T. Cicero's Cato Major, or his Discourse of old-age: with explanatory notes.

CHAP. XIX.

WE are now come to the fourth and last Charge, which is thought most nearly to affect Old Age, and to give the greatest Anxiety of all others, viz. The Aproach of Death, which 'tis certain can be at no great Distance. But miser|able is the Case of that Old Man, who in so long a Course of Years, has not laid in a sufficient Provision against those Fears, and enabled himself to contemn Death,

which is either to be slighted, as being in Reality nothing in itself, in case it puts an intire End to us, Soul as well as Body; or else, it is to be valued, and to be desired and wish'd for, if it leads us into another State, in which we are to enjoy Eternity: And between these there can be no Medium. What then am I to fear in Death, if after it, I am to have no Sense, and therefore can feel no Pain; or other|wise am to become immortal in another State by the Change? But again, can there be any one so void of Sense, as to think himself sure of living even to the next Evening? Nay, Youth in its greatest Vigour is subject to many more Casualties, and exposed to much greater and more fre|quent Dangers that may shorten Life, than Old Age itself, which is allowed to be drawn so near its End. Their Heat of Blood, and the frequent Changes of Heats and Colds, which they undergo, render them more liable to Fevers and other Fits of Sickeness, which, when they happen, bear heaviest on the strongest Constitutions; nor have they generally, when sick, the Patience to be so carefully nursed, as more

elderly and experienced People. And from these and such like Causes it is, that we see so few attain to Old Age. But happy would it be for the World, if more lived to reach it: For as Prudence and Skill are gained by Experience, and this de|pends on, and is enlarged by Length of Days; we might from greater Numbers of People grown old in such Experience, expect to see the Affairs of Life, both pub|lick and private, more regularly admi|nistred: And indeed without some such, Government could scarce subsist at all. But to return to the Consideration of Death impending. How can that be accounted an Unhappiness peculiar to Old Age, which we well know is common, and frequently happens to the Youngest, as well as to the Old? I found by near Experience in my own dear Son, and we saw in the

Death of your two Brothers, Scipio, who we expected were growing up to the highest Honours in Rome, that no Age is privileged, but Death is common to all. It may however be said, perhaps, that Youth has Room at least to hope they have Length of Life before them, which in Old Men would be vain. But foolish is that Hope: For what can be more ab|surd, than to build on utter Uncertainties, and account on that for sure, which proba|bly may never happen? And to what is alledged, that the Old Man has no Room lest for Hope, I say, Just so much the

happier is his Condition, than that of the Young; because he has already attained, and is sure of what the other only wishes and hopes for: The one wishes to live long, the other is at the End of that Wish, he has got it; for he has lived long already. Yet O good Gods! What is it in Life that can be said to be of long Duration? Tho' we should hold it to the utmost Extent of Age, or admit we should live the Days of that Tartessian King, (for I have read that one 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Arganth••nius reigned at Cadiz four-score Years, and lived to a hundred and twenty;) yet in my Opinion nothing can properly be termed lasting,

that has a certain Period fixed: For when that is once come, all the past is over and gone; and in the Business of Life, when that is run out, nothing remains to us, but what results from past good and virtuous Actions. The Hours, and Days, and Months, and Years, all slide away, nor can the past Time ever more return, or what is to follow be fore-known. We ought all to be content with the Time and Portion assigned us. No Man expects of any one Actor on the Theatre, that he should perform all the Parts of the Piece himself: One Role only is committed to him, and whatever that be, if he acts it well, he is applauded. In the same Man|ner, it is not the Part of a wise Man, to desire to be busy in these Scenes to the last Plaudit. A short Term may be long e|nough to live it well and honourably; and and if you hold it longer, when past the first Stages, you ought no more to grieve

that they are over, than the Husbandman repines that the Spring is past, and the Summer-Heats come on; or after these the more sickly Autumn. The Spring represents Youth, and shews what Fruits may be expected; the following Seasons are for ripening and gathering in those Fruits: And the best Fruits of Old Age are, as I have repeatedly said, the recol|lecting, and, as it were, seeding on the Remembrance of that Train and Store of good and virtuous Deeds, of which, in the Course of Life, we laid in a kind of Provision for this Season. But further we are to consider, that as all we enjoy is from Nature, whatever proceeds from, or is conformable to the established Laws of This, must in itself be good. Now, can any thing be more agreeable to those Laws, than that People in Old Age should die, since, more inconsistently with the Order of Nature, we find the same thing happens to Youth, even in the Prime of their Years? But the Difference is great; for Young Men seem to be forced from Lift, as Fires are extinguished by great Quantities of Water thrown on them;

when on the contrary, Old Men expire of themselves, like a Flame when all its Fuel is spent. And as unripe Fruit requires some Force to part it from its native Bough; but when come to full Maturity, it drops of itself, without any Hand to touch it: So Young People die by some|thing violent or unnatural; but the Old by meer Ripeness. The Thoughts of which to me are now become so agreeable, that the nearer I draw to my End, it seems like discovering the Land at Sea, that, after the Tossings of a tedious and stormy Voyage, will yield me a safe and quiet Harbour.

Notes

• Cato's Son and Namesake died Praetor of the City of Rome, the same Year that Lepidus died, as in Note 87. viz. in the Year 602; and, as it is noted in the same Argument of Livy there mention'd, viz. of Book 48. his Father gave him but a very mean Funeral, being able to afford no better, for that he was Poor: [M. P. Cato funus mortui filii, in Pr••tura, tenuiss••no, ut valuit (nam pauper erat) sumplu facit.] Which, con|sidering the offices that Cato bore, and his Frugality, adds not a little to his Character of Probity.—Plutarch gives this remarkable Story of Young Cato, in the Life of his Father, That being in the Army, under P. AEmi|lius, afterwards his Father-in-Law, in the great Battle fought with Persons, King of Macedon, [Note 24] his Sword was struck out of his Hand, and he lost it; upon which, getting together a Company of Young Men of his Acquaintance, they made such an Impression on the Enemy, that they cleared the Way before them to the same Place again, where he recovered it amongst Heaps of the Slain: And adds, That in his Time [Plutarch's, above 250 Years after] Cato's Letter to his Son was ex|tant, congratulating him on the Bravery of that Action.
• See Note 24.—These were Brothers to Scipio, but by half Blood, viz. the Sons of Paulus AEmilius by his 2d Wife, as Scipio was born of his first.
• Tartessus, a City on the North Side of the River Baetis, ••ow Guadelqui••ar, or the River of Sevil in Spain, and near the Mouth of it; supposed by some to be the Tarshish that Solomon sent his Ships to; the Phaenicians his Neighbours were the first ('tis said ) who failed thither, where they found Silver in such Plenty, and got so much of it in Exchange for their Goods, that they could not carry it off, Aristotle says, but, to have the more of it, they threw away their Anchors, to make others of that Metal: But this is in his Book of wonderful Stories, and therefore may be more strange than true. The Phoceans, a Greek Colony in Ionia, were the next who failed thither, in the Time of this Arganthonius, who was ex|ceeding Kind to them, inviting them to slay with him, and when they excused themselves, he gave them Money enough to wall in their Town against the Medes, who were then invading them. Her••••otus gives the Story of Arganthonius and the Ph••ceons, l.1.c.163. The learned Bochort derives his Name from two Phoenician Words, Arc-antho, Long lived. Canaan, c. 34.