We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five.
Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five;
For howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five;
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five;
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."

"'And now,' said he, as I was writing them down, 'you may see what it
is to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the
rhymes run in alphabetical order exactly.' And so they do."

Byron's estimate of life at the same age, is somewhat different:

"Too old for youth--too young, at thirty-five
To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore,
I wonder people should he left alive.
But since they are, that epoch is a bore."

Lady Aldborough, whose best witticisms unluckily lie under the same