ADVERTISEMENT.

THERE is not any Thing, I believe, which calls forth the melancholy and sympathetic Passions more forcibly than a Sight of those Men who have once been great or famous, and have outlived their For tune or Faculties. Who can forbear sighing when he beholds a BELISARIUS? Whose Heart is not wrung when he views a SWIFT in his Dotage? — Reflections of this Kind gave Birth to the following Stanzas. They were written upon an old Man in a Coun try-Village, whose Strength, Activity, and rustic Ac complishments, were once the frequent Admiration of his Fellow-Swains; and when Age had deprived[Page 18] him of them, and rendered him feeble and decrepid, the Remembrance of his past Exploits was often the Subject of their Exclamations, and the honest Motive of their Pity and Condolence, as well as the frequent Topic of his own Lamentation. The Effect that this Remembrance had upon his Mind cannot, perhaps, be conveyed more feelingly than by informing the Reader that the Sentence which I have chosen for a Motto was common in his Mouth, and generally attended with a Sigh.