YOUTH. (Cato's objection to a renovation of.)

It is said that Cato the Censor would not have grown young again. The words ascribed to him by Cicero upon this subject are admirable. “Quo quidem me proficiscentem haud sane quis facile retraxerit, neque tamquam Peliam recoxerit; et si quis Deus mihi largiatur, ut ex hac aetate repueriscam et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem: nec vero velim, quasi discurso spatio, ad carceres a calce revocari: quid enim habet vita commodi? quid non potius laboris? sed habeat sane; habet certe tamen aut satietatem, aut modum: non lubet enim mihi deplorare vitam, quod multi et ii docti saepe fecerunt, neque me vixisse pænitet: quoniam ita vixi, ut non frustra me natum existimem: et ex vita ita discedo, tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam ex domo: commorandi enim natura diversorium nobis, non habitandi dedit. Cicero de Senect. ¹⁸—While I am going thither, no man should easily prevail upon me to return back, or to have my flesh renewed like Pelias. If any god put it in my

choice to grow young again at this age, and to squall out in a cradle, I should certainly beg to be excused; neither would I incline to begin my race anew, after having almost reached the goal; for what is there in life so much to be desired? or rather, what things are in it not disagreeable? But let us suppose it to be a state of pleasure, there ought to be a fullness of that pleasure, or at least some bounds set to it. I am not sorry for having lived, as many learned men have pretended to be, neither do I repent of it, because I have lived in such a manner as to think that I was not born in vain. I leave the world, not as a house, but as an inn upon the road; for nature has provided us with a lodging for a short stay, not for a constant habitation.”

Observe the coherence of the maxims of this great man. He was not sorry that he had lived, he believed he had acted a glorious part upon the stage of the World, and yet he would not go through it again, if a god should offer it him; although he does not insist upon a reason which he took to be a true one, viz·.. that this life is liable to a thousand inconveniences, and has very few conveniences.—Art. Porcius;

YPRES, or IPRES.

(Satire on relation to the siege of.)

Ypres, or Ipres, an episcopal town in the earldom of Flanders, had its name from a river that runs through it. It was at first but a castle; the Normans having destroyed it, earl Baudouin, the second of the name, ordered it to be repaired in the year 880. Its stone walls were built in the year 1388, by the consent of Philip the Bold. The French took it in the year 1648, and lost it in the year following: they retook it in 1658, and restored it to the Spaniards by the Pyrenean treaty: they retook it once more in the year 1678, and the Spaniards gave it up to them by

the treaty of peace concluded at Nimeguen the same year. The disputes of Jansenism have rendered the name of Ypres famous; Jansenius being scarcely ever mentioned without observing that he was bishop of that town. The relation betwixt that town and the controversies of the Jansenists with the Jesuits, is by this means known to all the world, and hence, doubtless came that witty fancy of forging a pretended letter of the French king to M. Arnauld, dated from the camp before Ypres, in 1678. Many copies of this letter were handed about, and I remember that many persons, who were thought to have a very good judgment, found it ingenious: it was ascribed to M. Rose, secretary of the cabinet. I do not believe that it has been printed, and therefore I am willing to publish it.

A letter of king Louis XIV. to M. Arnauld, about the siege of Ypres. The play of this pasquinade on the five propositions of the Jansenists, on grace, necessity, and free-will, is humourous. --- ED. ¹⁹

Monsieur Arnauld, we are going to begin a siege, in which you may do us much service with your interest. I have five propositions to make to the gentlemen of Ypres. The first is, that I am come into Flanders to do good to every body; the second, that the command I give them to surrender up the town is not impossible; the third, that it is in their power to merit or not to merit my favour, The fourth, that I have forces with me more than sufficient to make them obey my orders; and the fifth, that though they be never so much .necessitated to surrender themselves, they will do it with entire liberty. The question is, therefore, to make them sign these five propositions; which include all the treaty of grace I design to show them. I do no/ think that they dan elude my orders, by the distinction de jure and de facto,

As to the right, I have taken all along so many towns, that time alone might serve me for a prescription in the Low-Countries, were I destitute of so many other indisputable rights. They can therefore insist only upon the fact, and I will convince them of this by a train of thirty cannon, to which I defy them to answer effectually; for they will pierce through all difficulties: by this you may judge that I shall not be so long in making them sign my five propositions, as you have been in signing those of the pope. Wherefore, I order you to summon the ban and arriereban of the Jansenists, and to leave Paris immediately, to come to the head of them, in order to sing Te Deum upon the tomb of Jansenius as a thanksgiving to God, for the happy success of my five propositions. You may, for bon-fire, bring a hundred copies of the “Miroir de la Piété Chrétienne,” to cast these good Flemings into a holy despair of ever belonging again to Spain. Afterwards you shall go into England, to manage there the lower house, which is little inclined to a peace. To conclude, I like your politics, and still more your money, which you use so advantageously to persuade people to what you have a mind to. Hereby, I am sure we shall have a peace with England and Spain, before you have it with the Jesuits. At the camp before Ypres, the 17th of March, 1678.

Art. Ypres.