A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons…

To stop any further Impatience, Consider, 1. That this great Decay in the Faculties doth not befall every Aged person. Divers there are and have been, that retain the free use of their Faculties till they dye. How many doth Tully name, as Simonides, Stesichorus, Isocrates, Hesiod, Homer, Pythagoras, ⟨p. 148⟩Democritus, Socrates, Plato, &c. who lived long, and yet continued a course of Studies as long as their life? ^cAnd he tells us there particularly of Sophocles, whose Sons accused him for a Dotard in his Old-age, till he before the Judges repeated the Tragedy of Oedipus, which he had newly written, and so was by them acquitted. And Seneca tells of himself then in years, that he was able to repeat Two thousand Names in Order, so faithfully did his Memory stick to him in his Old-age. And there are many Instances every day of fresh and lively parts in withered Bodies. Yea, for the most part we may observe that according to the Old saying, Omnia quae curant Senes meminerunt. What old people most regard, they best remember. They seldom as Tully observes, forget their Bonds, their Mortgages, what they owe, or what is owing unto them, or where they have laid up their Treasure. So that this charge lies not against all Old people, nor in all cases.

To stop any further Impatience, Consider, 1. That this great Decay in the Faculties doth not befall every Aged person. Divers there are and have been, that retain the free use of their Faculties till they dye. How many doth Tully name, as Simonides, Stesichorus, Isocrates, Hesiod, Homer, Pythagoras, ⟨p. 148⟩Democritus, Socrates, Plato, &c. who lived long, and yet continued a course of Studies as long as their life? ^cAnd he tells us there particularly of Sophocles, whose Sons accused him for a Dotard in his Old-age, till he before the Iudges repeated the Tragedy of Oedipus, which he had newly written, and so was by them acquitted. And Seneca tells of himself then in years, that he was able to repeat Two thousand Names in Order, so faithfully did his Memory stick to him in his Old-age. And there are many Instances every day of fresh and lively parts in withered Bodies. Yea, for the most part we may observe that according to the Old saying, Omnia quae curant Senes meminerunt. What old people most regard, they best remember. They seldom as Tully observes, forget their Bonds, their Mortgages, what they owe, or what is owing unto them, or where they have laid up their Treasure. So that this charge lies not against all Old people, nor in all cases.