myself feared, I had yet much rather make myself beloved:  there are so many sorts of defects in old age, so much imbecility, and it is so liable to contempt, that the best acquisition a man can make is the kindness and affection of his own family; command and fear are no longer his weapons.  Such an one I have known who, having been very imperious in his youth, when he came to be old, though he might have lived at his full ease, would ever strike, rant, swear, and curse:  the most violent householder in France:  fretting himself with unnecessary suspicion and vigilance.  And all this rumble and clutter but to make his family cheat him the more; of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes.  Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and fruitless parsimony.  Every one is a sentinel against him, and if, by accident, any wretched fellow that serves him is of another humour, and will not join with the rest, he is presently rendered suspected to him, a bait that old age very easily bites at of itself.  How often has this gentleman boasted to me in how great awe he kept his family, and how exact an obedience and reverence they paid him!  How clearly he saw into his own affairs!

“Ille solos nescit omnia.”

          ["He alone is ignorant of all that is passing.” 
          —­Terence, Adelph., iv. 2, 9.]

I do not know any one that can muster more parts, both natural and acquired, proper to maintain dominion, than he; yet he is fallen from it like a child.  For this reason it is that I have picked out him, amongst several others that I know of the same humour, for the greatest example.  It were matter for a question in the schools, whether he is better thus or otherwise.  In his presence, all submit to and bow to him, and give so much way to his vanity that nobody ever resists him; he has his fill of assents, of seeming fear, submission, and respect.  Does he turn away a servant? he packs up his bundle, and is gone; but ’tis no further than just out of his sight:  the steps of old age are so slow, the senses so troubled, that he will live and do his old office in the same house a year together without being perceived.

And after a fit interval of time, letters are pretended to come from a great way off; very humble, suppliant; and full of promises of amendment, by virtue of which he is again received into favour.  Does Monsieur make any bargain, or prepare any despatch that does not please? ’tis suppressed, and causes afterwards forged to excuse the want of execution in the one or answer in the other.  No letters being first brought to him, he never sees any but those that shall seem fit for his knowledge.  If by accident they