Unwelcome age comes on with swiftest pace;
Let’s then prevent this wretched sad disgrace.
O may the terrors of approaching fate,
Excite new fires, inspire fresh vig’rous heat;
That love may sov’reign reign in ev’ry part,
And drive unworthy weakness from our heart.
Thrice happy, if surpriz’d by death one day,
Absorpt in sweetest bliss we die away.
But to return to my subject. We are told for certain, that the Scythians used to drink out of a skull; and probably they had the same design in doing so as the Egyptians had in looking on their skeletons. But leaving these objects, which cannot be very diverting, in what view soever one may consider them, let us come to the Romans. Gruter tells us in his Inscriptions[8], that they used to cry out at their feasts,
Amici,
Dum vivimus,
Vivamus.