It has been remarked as extraordinary, that, amidst the anxious enumeration of the comforts of age, those arising from domestic society are not mentioned by Cicero; but his favourite daughter Tullia was now no more, and the husband of Terentia, the father of Marcus Cicero, and the father-in-law of Dolabella, may have felt something on that subject, of which he was willing to spare himself the recollection. But though he has omitted what we number among its chief consolations, still he has represented advanced age under too favourable a view. He denies, for instance, that the memory is impaired by it--asserting, that everything continues to be remembered, in which we take an interest, for that no old man ever forgot where he had concealed his treasure. He has, besides, only treated of an old age distinguished by deeds or learning, terminating a life great and glorious in the eyes of men. The table of the old man whom he describes, is cheered by numerous friends, and his presence, wherever he appears, is hailed by clients and dependants. All his examples are drawn from the higher and better walks of life. In the venerable picture of the Censor, we have no traces of second childhood, or of the slippered pantaloon, or of that melancholy and almost frightful representation, in the tenth satire of Juvenal. But even persons of the station, and dignity, and talents of Cato, are, in old age, liable to weaknesses and misfortunes, with which the pleasing portrait, that Tully has drawn, is in no way disfigured:--
"In life's last scene, what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show."
The treatise _De Senectute_ has been versified by Denham, under the title of _Cato Major_. The subject of the evils of old age is divided, as by Cicero, into four parts. "I can neither," says he, in his preface, "call this piece Tully's nor my own, being much altered from the original, not only by the change of the style, but by addition and subtraction." In fact, the fine sentiments are Cicero's--the doggerel English verse, into which he has converted Cicero's classical prose, his own. The fourth part, on the approach of death, is that which is best versified.