n happy scepticism of the winter
which was to come.

Talk of putting old heads upon young shoulders! Heaven forbid! It would
but be making them stoop prematurely. If indeed we could put young
hearts into old bodies occasionally, we might do some good; or if there
could ever be combined in some fortunate individual, throughout his
life, the good qualities peculiar to each successive climacteric; if we
could mix just enough of the acid and the bitter, which are apt to
predominate so unhappily after a long rubbing through the world, to
qualify the fiery spirit of youth, and prevent its sweetness from
cloying, the compound would undoubtedly be a very pleasant one. But
this, it is to be feared, like many other desiderata, is too good to be
attainable; and the experience which we undoubtedly want in early life,
we acquire too often at the cost of that freshness of heart, which
nature intended as a gift still more valuable.

Nowhere does the old Stagyrite display a more consummate knowledge of
what men are made of, than in his contrasted characters of youth and
age. I wonder how many of the old gentlemen who call themselves
philosophers in this degenerate age, ever read or remember what he says
on the subject. It is a great comfort, when one is arguing against so
much collective wisdom, to feel that one has such authority to fall back
upon; and I have the less hesitation in bringing my old friend Aristotle
forward to help me, because I can assure my unlearned readers, ladies
and others, that I am not going to quote any thing nearly so grave and
sensible as modern philosophy. "Stingy, ill-natured, suspicious,
selfish, narrow-minded"--these, with scarce a redeeming quality, are
some of the choice epithets which he strings together as the
characteristics of the respectable old governors and dowagers of his
day; while the young, although, as he confesses, somewhat too much the
creatures of impulse, and indebted to it for some of their virtues as
well as vices, are trustful towards others, honest in themselves,
open-handed and open-hearted, warm friends and brave enemies. It is
true, he observes, they have, in a large degree, the fault common to all
honest men, they are "easily humbugged;" a failing which perhaps may let
us into the secret of their sitting down so quietly under the imputation
of a hundred others. He urges, too, elsewhere, a fact I am not disposed
to battle about, that young men do not make good philosophers; but t