nothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should
have as much wisdom as a man?--according to that common proverb, "I do
not like a child that is a man too soon." Or who would endure a converse
or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things
had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And
therefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so,
it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from
all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot
companion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly
age finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like
Plautus' old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O., the most
unhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it.
And yet, so much do I befriend him that I make him well received of his
friends and no unpleasant companion; for as much as, according to Homer,
Nestor's discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles' was both
bitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place,
florid. In which respect also they have this advantage of children, in
that they want the only pleasure of the others' life, we'll suppose it
prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with
children, and they, again, with old men. "Like to like," quoted the Devil
to the collier. For what difference between them, but that the one has
more wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise, the
brightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of
mild, broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and
briefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by how much the
nearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into
the likeness of children, until like them they pass from life to death,
without any weariness of the one, or sense of the other.

And now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the