Old Age [pp. 743-746]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
743
OLD AGE.
Methinks I hear in accents low,
The sportive kind reply,
Poor moralist and what art thou?
A solitary fly.
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display;
On hasty wings thy youth has flown,
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone,
We frolic while'tis May.
G-ay's Ode on Spring.
Among the changes which time is working in
the manners of society, there is nothiing, Mr.
Editor, which strikes an old man more forcibly,
than the diminished deference which is paid to
age. When I was young, emulation displayed
itself in respect for grey hairs, especially when
associated with distinguished talents, with eminent
services, or with the conscious dignity of a long
life of purity and virtue. Even the most humble-who could appeal to nothing else-found
always in their scanty locks, and tottering frame,
the best assurance of kindness and sympathy. The
young sought the company of the aged; they
hung upon their lips as the oracles of wisdom;
they listened to their narratives with delight, and
to their instruction with veneration In short,
piety towards age was a virtue of the times, and
was one of the most interesting features in the
character of society.
In every age and country-whether civilized or
savage, this pious reverence for the aged, seems to
have been inculcated as one of the first of virtues.
It is traced by the learned to the heroic ages, and
from themr has been transmitted with their elevated
feeling,s, to succeeding times. It is a striking
trait inll the character of the Greek and of the Roman. It was the basis of the Spartan rule, and
one of the massy Dorics, that sustained the fabric of Roman greatness. It is cherished upon
the shores of Japan, even by a race that tramples
on the Cross, and prevails at the Indian council-fire
among the savages of the Rocky Mountains. It
seems to be the simple and natural dictate of the
unsophisticated heart, and is equally taught by
Philosophy and Revelation. It is the creedof the
Christian and of the Turk —it is commanded by
the Bible, and by the Koran. "Thou shalt rise
up before the hoary head! thou shalt honor the
face of the aged! I am the Lord!"-is the solemn
mandate of the Almighty, delivered from Mount
Sinai, by the lips of the inspired lawgiver. (Leviticus 19. 32.). " The hoary head" is pronounced
to be "a crown of glory;" and youth, however enlightened by wisdom, is exhibited as bowing with
humility in the presence of the aged. "I am
young," said Elihu, "and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid and durst not show you mine
opinion." On the other hand the visitation of
God is represented as sending instant death upon
the children, who followed, with insulting shouts
the footsteps of the aged prophet, crying in derision "go up thou bald head!" And the holy seer,
in depicting the calamities which impended over
his people, enumerates in the sad array, the change
of manners when "the child shall behave himself
proudly against the ancient, and the base against
the honorable." (Isaiah, 3. 5.) How beautifully,
and how forcibly, does Job too, in his anguish, depict the contempt which -;s poured upon him,
by the youth, who had bowed down before him in
the days of his prosperity, and strength. " My
glory was fresh upon me: unto me men gave ear,
and kept silence at my counsel. But now they
that are younger than I, have me in derisionthey, whose fathers I woul(il have disdained to have
set with the dogs of my flock; they push away
my feet, and raise up against me the ways of their
destruction."
The faithful will not require that I should add
to the weighty commands of the inspired book,
the injunctions of Mahomet, or even the beautiful
morality of the philosophers of old. The classic,
indeed, will readily recall the sweet reflections of
Cicero on the delightful intercourse of the old and
young, and the youngest historians will remember
the striking anecdote preserved in the Grecian annals. An ancient Athenian once entered the
crowded theatre and passed to that quarter where
his countrynmen were seated. They were nailed
to their benches. Not a man moved for him. Alas!
that there should be among us, so many like them!
The baffled old man, pausing here and there in
vain, in expectation of the offered civility of a
seat, passed on to that part of the house where
were assembled the Spartan Ambassadors with
their attendants. As he approached, the whole
body rose from their places as if by common
impulse, and pressed the wearied stranger to take
a seat with them. In a moment the theatre rung
with the plaudits of the delightedi Athenians;
upon which an old Lacedemonian with Spartan
brevity observed, "the Athenians know i hat is
true politeness; the Lacedemonians practice it."
The burst of approbation, even from those who
must have felt self-abased for their rudeness, was
but the spontaneous tribute of the human heart
to piety and virtue; and proves that the fault of
the Athenians was the result of their thoughtlessness rather than of their want of feeling.
Turning our eyes fiom the republics of old to
our Ancient Commonwealth; it is gratifying to see
how sedulously our fathers inculcated the virtuous
principle of which we have been speaking. Its
traces are to be distinctly seen in some of those
little traits of social and domestic intercourse,
which have always struck me as peculiarly amiable and interesting. Thus, when I was a boy,
my thther's intimate friends were all of them my
uncles and amnts, though the most profound genea