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se A PANEGYRICK what Ominous to fec a Boy endow’d with the Diſcretion of a Man, and therefore for the Curbing of too forward Parts we have a difparaging Proverb, Soon ripe, Joon rotten? ‘And farther, who would keep Company, or have any thing to do with fuch an Old Blade, as, after the Wear and Harrowing of fo many Years, fhould yet continue of as clear Head and found a Judgment as he had at any ‘time been in his Middle-Age; and therefore it isa great Kindnefs of me that Old Men grow Fools, fince it is hereby only that they are freed from fuch Vexations as would? torment them if they were more Wife: They can drink briskly, bear up ftoutly,. and light-ly pafs over. fuch Infirmities, as a far ftronger Confitation could fcarce mafter. Sometime, with the Old Fellow in Plautus, they are brought back totheir Horu-book again, to learn to fpell their-Fertune in Love. Most wretched would they needs be if they had but Wit enough to be fenfible of their hard Condition; but, by my Affiftance, they carry off all well, and to their refpective Friends approve themfelves good, fociable, jolly Companions. ‘Thus Homer makes Aged Neftor fam’d for. a fmooth cily-tongu’d Orator, while the Delivery of Achelles was but rough, harſh and hefitant 5 and the fame Poer elfewhere tells us of Old Men that fate on the Walls, and.fpake with a great deal of Flourifh and Elegance. And in this Poi: indeed they ſurpaſs and outgo Children, whavare pretty forward in a ſoftly innocent “rattle, but otherwife are too much Tongue-ty’d, and want the other's maſt acceptable
