Decay of my Faculties
is a Stagnation of my Life. But how is it, Sir, that my Appetites are
increased upon me with the Loss of Power to gratify them? I write
this, like a Criminal, to warn People to enter upon what Reformation
they may please to make in themselves in their Youth, and not expect
they shall be capable of it from a fond Opinion some have often in
their Mouths, that if we do not leave our Desires they will leave us.
It is far otherwise; I am now as vain in my Dress, and as flippant if
I see a pretty Woman, as when in my Youth I stood upon a Bench in the
Pit to survey the whole Circle of Beauties. The Folly is so
extravagant with me, and I went on with so little Check of my Desires,
or Resignation of them, that I can assure you, I very often meerly to
entertain my own Thoughts, sit with my Spectacles on, writing
Love-Letters to the Beauties that have been long since in their
Graves. This is to warm my Heart with the faint Memory of Delights
which were once agreeable to me; but how much happier would my Life
have been now, if I could have looked back on any worthy Action done
for my Country? If I had laid out that which I profused in Luxury and
Wantonness, in Acts of Generosity or Charity? I have lived a Batchelor
to this Day; and instead of a numerous Offspring, with which, in the
regular Ways of Life, I might possibly have delighted my self, I have
only to amuse my self with the Repetition of Old Stories and Intrigues
which no one will believe I ever was concerned in. I do not know
whether you have ever treated of it or not; but you cannot fall on a
better Subject, than that of the Art of growing old. In such a Lecture
you must propose, that no one set his Heart upon what is transient;
the Beauty grows wrinkled while we are yet gazing at her. The witty
Man sinks into a Humourist imperceptibly, for want of reflecting that
all Things around him are in a Flux, and continually changing: Thus he
is in the Space of ten or fifteen Years surrounded by a new Set of
People whose Manners are as natural to them as his Delights, Method of
Thinking, and Mode of Living, were formerly to him and his Friends.
But the Mischief is, he looks upon the same kind of Errors which he
himself was guilty of with an Eye of Scorn, and with that sort of
Ill-will which Men entertain against each other for different
Opinions: Thus a crasie Constitution, and an uneasie Mi