solve that of the
Censor from envy and ambition, having dared to attack the honour of
Scipio, a man in goodness and all other excellent qualities infinitely
beyond him or any other of his time?

That which they, report of him, amongst other things, that in his extreme
old age he put himself upon learning the Greek tongue with so greedy an
appetite, as if to quench a long thirst, does not seem to me to make much
for his honour; it being properly what we call falling into second
childhood. All things have their seasons, even good ones, and I may say
my Paternoster out of time; as they accused T. Quintus Flaminius, that
being general of an army, he was seen praying apart in the time of a
battle that he won.

"Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis."

["The wise man limits even honest things."--Juvenal, vi. 444]

Eudemonidas, seeing Xenocrates when very old, still very intent upon his
school lectures: "When will this man be wise," said he, "if he is yet
learning?" And Philopaemen, to those who extolled King Ptolemy for every
day inuring his person to the exercise of arms: "It is not," said he,
"commendable in a king of his age to exercise himself in these things; he
ought now really to employ them." The young are to make their
preparations, the old to enjoy them, say the sages: and the greatest vice
they observe in us is that our desires incessantly grow young again; we
are always re-beginning to live.

Our studies and desires should sometime be sensible of age; yet we have
one foot in the grave and still our appetites and pursuits spring every
day anew within us:

"Tu secanda marmora
Locas sub ipsum funus, et, sepulcri
Immemor, struis domos."

["You against the time of death have marble cut for use, and,
forgetful of the tomb, build houses."--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 17.]

The longest of my designs is not of above a year's extent; I think of
nothing now but ending; rid myself of all new hopes and enterprises; take
my last leave of every place I depart from, and every day dispossess
myself of what I have.

"Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur....
plus superest viatici quam viae."

["Henceforward I will neither lose, nor expect to get: I have more
wherewith to defray my journey, than I have way to go." (Or):
"Hitherto nothing of me has been lost or gained; more remains to pay