of it; and so shall you:  if not of that disease, of another.  And how many have not escaped dying, who have had three physicians at their tails?  Example is a vague and universal mirror, and of various reflections.  If it be a delicious medicine, take it:  ’tis always so much present good.  I will never stick at the name nor the colour, if it be pleasant and grateful to the palate:  pleasure is one of the chiefest kinds of profit.  I have suffered colds, gouty defluxions, relaxations, palpitations of the heart, megrims, and other accidents, to grow old and die in time a natural death.  I have so lost them when I was half fit to keep them:  they are sooner prevailed upon by courtesy than huffing.  We must patiently suffer the laws of our condition; we are born to grow old, to grow weak, and to be sick, in despite of all medicine.  ’Tis the first lesson the Mexicans teach their children; so soon as ever they are born they thus salute them:  “Thou art come into the world, child, to endure:  endure, suffer, and say nothing.”  ’Tis injustice to lament that which has befallen any one which may befall every one: 

     “Indignare, si quid in to inique proprio constitutum est.”

     ["Then be angry, when there is anything unjustly decreed against
     thee alone.”—­Seneca, Ep., 91.]

See an old man who begs of God that he will maintain his health vigorous and entire; that is to say, that he restore him to youth: 

          “Stulte, quid haec frustra votis puerilibus optas?”

          ["Fool! why do you vainly form these puerile wishes?”
          —­Ovid., Trist., 111. 8, II.]

is it not folly? his condition is not capable of it.  The gout, the stone, and indigestion are symptoms of long years; as heat, rains, and winds are of long journeys.  Plato does not believe that AEsculapius troubled himself to provide by regimen to prolong life in a weak and wasted body, useless to his country and to his profession, or to beget healthful and robust children; and does not think this care suitable to the Divine justice and prudence, which is to direct all things to utility.  My good friend, your business is done; nobody can restore you; they can, at the most, but patch you up, and prop you a little, and by that means prolong your misery an hour or two: 

              “Non secus instantem cupiens fulcire ruinam,
               Diversis contra nititur obiicibus;
               Donec certa dies, omni compage soluta,
               Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium.”

["Like one who, desiring to stay an impending ruin, places various
props against it, till, in a short time, the house, the props, and
all, giving way, fall together.”—­Pseudo-Gallus, i. 171.]