I love daylight and a candle,
And to see, and to see

As well as handle.

Why so many bolts and locks,
Coats and smocks,

And those drawers, with a pox?

I could wish, could Nature make it, Nakedness, nakedness

Itself were naked.

But if a mistress I must have

Wise and grave,

Let her so herself behave;
All the day long Susan civil,
Pap by night, pap by night,
Or such a devil.

CATO MAJOR.

TO THE READER.

I CAN neither call this piece Tully's nor my own being much altered from the original, not only by the change of the style, but by addition and subtraction. I believe you will be better pleased to receive it, as I did, at the first sight; for to me Cicero did not so much appear to write, as Cato to speak; and, to do right to my author, I believe no character of any person was ever better drawn to the life than this. Therefore neither consider Cicero nor me, but Cato himself, who being then raised from the dead to speak the language of that age and place, neither the distance of place or time makes it less possible to raise him now to speak ours.

Though I dare not compare my copy with the original, yet you will find it mentioned here how much fruits are improved by graffing; and here, by graffing verse upon prose, some of these severer arguments may receive a more mild and pleasant

taste.

Cato says (in another place) of himself, that he learned to speak Greek between the seventieth and eightieth year of his age; beginning that so late, he may not yet be too old to learn English, being now but between his seventeenth and eighteenth hundred year. For these rea ons I shall leave to this piece no other name than what the author gave it, of Cato Major.

THAT learned critic, the younger Scaliger, comparing the two great orators, says, that nothing can be taken from Demosthenes, nor added to Tully; and if there be any fault in the last, it is the resumption or dwelling too long upon his arguments: for which reason, having intended to trans late this piece into prose, (where translation ought to be strict,) finding the matter very proper for verse, I took the liberty to leave out what was only necessary to that age and place, and to take or add what was proper to this present age and occasion, by laying his sense closer, and in fewer words, according to the style and ear of these times. The three first parts I dedicate to my old friends, to take off those melancholy reflections which the sense of age, infirmity, and death, may give them. The last part I think necessary for the conviction of those many who believe not, or at least mind not, the immortality of the soul, of which the Scripture speaks only positively as a lawgiver, with an ipse dixit; but it may be, they neither believe that, (from which they either make doubts or sport,) nor those whose business it is to interpret it, supposing they do it only for their own ends: but if a heathen philosopher bring such arguments from reason, nature, and second causes, which none of our atheistical sophisters can confute, if they may stand convinced that there is an immortality of the soul, I hope they will so weigh the consequences as neither to talk nor live as if there was no such thing.

CATO MAJOR OF OLD AGE.

CATO, SCIPIO, LÆLIUS.

SCIPIO.

THO' all the actions of your life are crown'd With wisdom, nothing makes them more renown'd Than that those years, which others think extreme, Nor to yourself nor us uneasy seem,

Under which weight most like th' old giants groan When Ætna on their backs by Jove was thrown.

CAT. What you urge, Scipio, from right reason
All parts of Age seem burthensome to those [flows;
Who virtue's and true wisdom's happiness
Cannot discern; but they who those possess,
In what's impos'd by Nature find no grief,
Of which our Age is (next our death) the chief,
Which tho' all equally desire t' obtain.

Yet when they have obtain❜d it they complain:
Such our inconstancies and follies are,

We say it steals upon us unaware.

Our want of reas'ning these false measures makes;
Youth runs to Age, as childhood youth o'ertakes.
How much more grievous would our lives appear
To reach th' eighth hundred than the eightieth year?
Of what in that long space of time hath past
To foolish Age will no remembrance last.
My Age's conduct when you seem t' admire,
(Which that it may deserve I much desire,)

"Tis my first rule on Nature, as my guide
Appointed by the gods, I have rely'd;
And Nature, which all acts of life designs,
Not, like ill poets, in the last declines:
But some one part must be the last of all,
Which, like ripe fruits, must either rot or fall;
And this from Nature must be gently borne,
Else her (as giants did the gods) we scorn.
LÆL. But, Sir, 'tis Scipio's and my desire,
Since to long life we gladly would aspire,
That from your grave instructions we might hear
How we,
like you, may this great burthen bear.
CAT. This I resolv'd before, but now shall do
With great delight, since 'tis requir’d by you.
LEL. If to yourself it will not tedious prove,
Nothing in us a greater joy can move,
That as old travellers the young instruct,
Your long our short experience may conduct.

CAT. 'Tis true, (as the old proverb doth relate,
Equals with equals often congregate.
Two consuls*, (who in years my equals were,)
When senators, lamenting I did hear

That Age from them had all their pleasures torn,
And them their former suppliants now scorn.
They what is not to be accus'd accuse;
Not others but themselves their Age abuse;
Else this might me concern, and all my friends,
Whose cheerful Age with honour youth attends,

Caius Salinator, Spurius Albinus.

M