"And what have I done all this time for God or man? What a vast profusion of good things upon a useless life, and a worthless liver! There is not the meanest creature among all these which I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it hath done so. Every crab and oyster I have eat, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honour than I have done: O shameful waste of life and time!"
In short, he carried on his moral reflections with so just and severe a force of reason, as constrained him to change his whole course of life, to break off his follies at once, and to apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was more than thirty years of age; he lived many following years with the character of a worthy man, and an excellent Christian; he performed the kind offices of a good neighbour at home, and made a shining figure as a patriot in the senate-house; he died with a peaceful conscience, and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb.
The world, that knew the whole series of his life, stood amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the divine power and mercy, which had transformed him from a brute to a man.
But this was a single instance; and we may almost venture to write MIRACLE upon it. Are there not numbers of both sexes among our young gentry, in this degenerate age, whose lives thus run to utter waste, without the least tendency to usefulness!
When I meet with persons of such a worthless character as this, it brings to my mind some scraps of Horace,
Nos numerus sumus, & fruges consumere nati.
——Alcinoique Juventus
Cui pulchrum fuit in Medios dormire dies, &c.
PARAPHRASE.
There are a number of us creep
Into this world, to eat and sleep;
And know no reason why they're born,
But merely to consume the corn,
Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish,
And leave behind an empty dish:
Though crows and ravens do the same,
Unlucky birds of hateful name;
Ravens or crows might fill their places,
And swallow corn and carcases.
Then, if their tombstone, when they die,
Ben't taught to flatter and to lie,
There's nothing better will be said,
Than that they've eat up all their bread, }
Drank all their drink, and gone to bed. }
There are other fragments of that heathen poet, which occur on such occasions; one in the first of his satires, the other in the first of his epistles, which seem to represent life only as a season of luxury.
——Exacto contentus tempore vitæ
Cedat uti convivia statur——
Lusisti satus, edisti satis atque babisti;
Tempus abire tibi.