How nicely does he describe the decay of man, the second childhood, the wasting away of the organism:

Again:

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As You Like It, Act. II., Sc. VII.

Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part of you blasted with antiquity; and will you yet call yourself young?

Henry IV-2d, Act I., Sc. II.

The satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. Hamlet, Act II., Sc. II.

A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow.

* * *

Will never leave him, till he's dead.
Besides, his memory decays:
He recollects not what he says:
He can not call his friends to mind;
Forgets the place where last he dined;
Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;
He told them fifty times before.
How does he fancy we can sit
To hear his out-of-fashion wit?
But he takes up with younger folks,
Who for his wine will bear his jokes.
Faith, he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter.

Swift-" Death of Dr. Swift."

Thus Swift predicted his own end as early as 1731. History mournfully testifies that his candle burnt out as he anticipated. "Fits of lunacy were succeeded by the dementia of old age. For three years he uttered only a few words and broken interjections. He would often attempt to speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a simile of Addison's), was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a mighty intellect! In speechless silence his spirit passed away October 19, 1745." (Chamber's Eng. Lit.)

Manhood declines-age palsies every limb;

He quits the scene-or else the scene quits him;
Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves,
And avarice seizes all ambition leaves;
Counts cent. per cent., and smiles or vainly frets,
O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,

Complete in all life's lessons-but to die;

Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,

Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept-is buried-let him rot!

Byron-Hints from Horace.

The signs of a probable fatal termination are most beautifully portrayed by Shakespeare. The death of Falstaff can not fail to be regarded by the profession as an excellent description of approaching dissolution.

'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning of the tide : for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger's ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. 'A bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they

* * *

were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upwards, and upwards, and all was as cold as any stone.

Clarence.

Clarence.

Henry V., Act II., Sc. III.

Brakenbury. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
Methought I had; for still the envious flood
Kept in my soul and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

*

Richard III., Act I. Sc. IV.

How oft when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death.

She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite

Of easy ways to die. Antony and Cleopatra, Act V., Sc. II.

Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:

A word ill urg'd to one that is so ill.

Death, on a solemn night of state,

In all his pomp of terror sate :

The attendants of his gloomy reign,

Diseases dire, a ghastly train !

Crowded the vast court. With hollow tone,

A voice thus thundered from the throne:
"This night our minister we name;
Let every servant speak his claim;

Merit shall bear this ebon wand."

All, at the word, stretched forth their hand.
Fever, with burning heat possessed.

Advanced, and for the wand addressed:

"I to the weekly bills appeal;

Let those express my fervant zeal ;

On every slight occasion near,

With violence I persevere "

Next Gout appears with limping pace,
Pleads how he shifts from place to place;

From head to foot how swift he flies,

And every joint and sinew plies;
Still working when he seems supprest,
A most tenacious stubborn guest.

A haggard spectre from the crew

Crawls forth, and thus asserts his due:
"'Tis I who taint the sweetest joy,
And in the shape of love destroy.

My shanks, sunk eyes, and noseless face,
Prove my pretension to the place."
Stone urged his overgrowing force;

And, next consumption's meagre corse,
With feeble voice that scarce was heard,
Broke with short coughs, his suit preferred:
"Let none object my lingering way;

I gain, like Fabius, by delay;

Fatigue and weaken every foe

By long attack, secure, though slow."
Plague represents his rapid power,

Who thinned a nation in an hour.

All spoke their claim and hoped the wand.

Now expectation hushed the band,

When thus the monarch from the throne:
"Merit was ever modest known.

What! no physician speak his right?
None here! but fees their toil requite.
Let, then, Intemperance take the wand,
Who fills with gold their zealous hand.
You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest-
Whom wary men as foes detest-
Forego your claim. No more pretend
Intemperance is esteemed a friend;

He shares their mirth, their social joys,
And as a courted guest destroys.
The charge on him must justly fall,
Who finds employment for you all

Gay-" Court of Death."

Shakespeare paid much more attention to the practice of medicine and obstetrics than to surgery. Perhaps the cause of this was that at that time surgery had not reached its present perfection. A more probable reason is that his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, may not have been a surgeon.

Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?

Cas. Ay, past all surgery.

Othello, Act II., Sc. III.

་

Can honour set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No.

No.

Henry IV., Act V., Sc. I.

With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover.

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V., Sc. I.

Let me have surgeons;

I am cut to the brains.

King Lear, Act IV., Sc. VI.

The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all— We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some, upon their wives left poor behind them.

Patr. Who keeps the tent now?

Henry V., Act IV., Sc. I.

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.

Troilus and Cressida, Act V., Sc. I.

Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd:

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee.

Lucrece.

What opposite discoveries we have seen!

(Signs of true genius, and of empty pockets ;)

One makes new noses, one a guillotine,

One breaks your bones, one sets them in their sockets.

Byron-Don Juan, Canto I., Verse CXXIX.