In the same spirit, recollecting perhaps this very passage of the delightful old Gascon, one of our own poets says,
Old age doth give by too long space,
Our souls as many wrinkles as our face;
and the same thing, no doubt in imitation of Montagne has been said by Corneille in a poem of thanks addressed to Louis XIV., when that King had ordered some of his plays to be represented during the winter of 1685, though he had ceased to be a popular writer,
Je vieillis, ou du moins, ils se le persuadent;
Pour bien écrire encor j'ai trop long tems écrit,
Et les rides du front passent jusqu' à l'esprit.
The opinion proceeded not in the poet Daniel from perverted philosophy, or sourness of natural disposition, for all his affections were kindly, and he was a tender-hearted, wise, good man. But he wrote this in the evening of his days, when he had
out lived the date
Of former grace, acceptance and delight,
when,
those bright stars from whence
He had his light, were set for evermore;
and when he complained that years had done to him
this wrong,
To make him write too much, and live too long;