e
gratified. The world seems to have formed an universal conspiracy
against our understandings; our questions are supposed not to expect
answers, our arguments are confuted with a jest, and we are treated like
beings who transgress the limits of our nature whenever we aspire to
seriousness or improvement.

I inquired yesterday of a gentleman eminent for astronomical skill, what
made the day long in summer, and short in winter; and was told that
nature protracted the days in summer, lest ladies should want time to
walk in the park; and the nights in winter, lest they should not have
hours sufficient to spend at the card-table.

I hope you do not doubt but I heard such information with just contempt,
and I desire you to discover to this great master of ridicule, that I
was far from wanting any intelligence which he could have given me. I
asked the question with no other intention than to set him free from the
necessity of silence, and give him an opportunity of mingling on equal
terms with a polite assembly, from which, however uneasy, he could not
then escape, by a kind introduction of the only subject on which I
believed him able to speak with propriety.

I am, &c.

GENEROSA.

No. 127. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1751.

_Capisti meliust, quam desinis. Ultima primis
Cedunt: dissimiles hic vir et ille puer_. Ovid. Ep. ix. 24.

Succeeding years thy early fame destroy;
Thou, who began'st a man, wilt end a boy.

Politian, a name eminent among the restorers of polite literature, when
he published a collection of epigrams, prefixed to many of them the year
of his age at which they were composed. He might design, by this
information, either to boast the early maturity of his genius, or to
conciliate indulgence to the puerility of his performances. But whatever
was his intent, it is remarked by Scaliger, that he very little promoted
his own reputation, because he fell below the promise which his first
productions had given, and, in the latter part of his life, seldom
equalled the sallies of his youth.

It is not uncommon for those who, at their first entrance into the
world, were distinguished for attainments or abilities, to disappoint
the hopes which they had raised, and to end in neglect and obscurity
that life which they began in celebrity and honour. To the long
catalogue of the inconveniencies of old age, which moral and satirical
writers have so copiously displayed, may be often added the loss of
fame.