No. 51. SATURDAY, January 21, 1786.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LOUNGER.

SIR,

WAS much pleased with one of your late papers, published on the last day of last year, in which you suggested several uses that might be made of a recollection of past events, and of a proper consideration of the power of time.

The neglect of the improvement of time, is an evil of which every moralist has complained, on which therefore it were presumption in me to attempt to enlarge. But without repeating what has been so often and so well said on its waste, or its abuse, permit me to take notice of that forgetfulness of its progress, which affects

the conduct and deportment of so many in the different relations of life. In matters of serious concern, we cannot violate the rights of time without rendering ourselves unhappy; in objects of smaller importance, we cannot withdraw from its jurisdiction without making ourselves ridiculous. Its progress, however, is unfortunately very apt to be unnoticed by ourselves, to whom its daily motion is gradual and imperceptible; but by others it will hardly fail to be marked, and they will expect a behaviour suitable to the character it should stamp upon us.

How often do the old. forget the period at which they are arrived, and keep up a behaviour suitable, or perhaps only excusable in that which they have long ago passed? We see every day sexagenary beaux, and grey-haired rakes, who mix with the gay and the dissipated of the present time, and pride themselves on the want of that thought and seriousness which

years alone, if not wisdom, should have taught them. This is the pitiful ambition of the weak and the profligate, who, unable to attain the respect due to virtue, or the credit of usefulness, wish to shew the vigour of their minds, and the soundness of their constitutions, at a late period of life, by supporting a character of folly or licentiousness. But they should be told, that they generally fail in their object, contemptible as it is; the world only allows them credit for an attempt at follies, for an affectation of vice. "What a fine wicked old dog your father is!" said a young fellow, in my hearing, at the door of a tavern, a few nights ago. Why, yes," replied his companion, with a tone of sang froid, "he would if

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he could."

In the other sex, I confess I feel myself more inclined to make allowance for those rebels against time, who wish to extend the period of youth beyond its na

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tural duration. The empire of beauty is a distinction so flattering, and its resignation makes so mortifying a change in the state of its possessor, that, I am not much surprised if she who has once enjoyed it, tries every art to prolong her reign. This indulgence, however, is only due to those who have no other part to perform, no other character to support. She who is a wife or a mother, has other objects to which her attention may be turned, from which her respectability may be drawn. I cannot therefore easily pardon those whom we see at public places, the rivals of their daughters, with the airy gait, the flaunting dress, and the playful giggle of fifteen. As to those elderly ladies, who continue to haunt the scenes of their early amusements, who sometimes exhibit themselves in al the gay colours of youth and fashion, like those unnatural fruit-trees that blossom in December, I am disposed rather to pity than to blame

them. In thus attending the triumphs of beauty, they may be of the same use with the monitor, who followed the Roman heroes in their triumphal processions, to put them in mind, amidst the shouts of the people, and the parade of conquest, that, for all their glory, they were still but

men.

But the progress of time is as often anticipated as it is forgotten, and youth usurps the privileges of age, as frequently as age would retain the privileges of youth. At no period, perhaps, was this prematurity of behaviour more conspicuous than at present. We have boys discoursing politics, arguing metaphysics, and supporting infidelity, at an age little beyond that when they used to be playing at taw and leap frog. Nor are these the most hurtful of their pretensions. In vice, as in self-importance, they contrive to get beyond "the ignorant present time;" and, at the years of boyishness,