Wesley Corpus

9. It is certain, this has been the common cry from generation to generation. And if it is not true, whence should it arise How can we account for it Perhaps another remark of the same poet may help us to an answer. May it not be extracted from the general character which he gives of old men Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti Se puero, censor, castigatorque minorum. [The following is Boscawen's translation of this quotation from Horace: -- "Fastidious, peevish, prone to praise What pass'd when in their youthful days, And with severe censorious tongue Correct the follies of the young." -- Edit.] Is it not the common practice of old men to praise the past and condemn the present time And this may probably operate much farther than one would at first imagine. When those that have more experience than us, and therefore we are apt to think more wisdom, are almost continually harping upon this, the degeneracy of the world; those who are accustomed from their infancy to hear how much better the world was formerly than it is now, (and so it really seemed to them when they were young, and just come into the world, and when the cheerfulness of youth gave a pleasing air to all that was round about them,) the idea of the world's being worse and worse would naturally grow up with them. And so it will be, till we, in our turn, grow peevish, fretful, discontented, and full of melancholy complaints, "How wicked the world is grown!' How much better it was when we were young, in the golden days that we can remember!"