I was in the company of an elderly gentleman, not very long since, who was perfectly sober, who is not particularly handsome, or healthy, or wealthy, or witty; and who, speaking of his past life, volunteered to declare that he would gladly live every minute of it over again. Is a man who can say that a hardened sinner, not aware how miserable he ought to be by rights, and therefore really in a most desperate and deplorable condition; or is he _fortunatus nimium_, and ought his statue to be put up in the most splendid and crowded thoroughfare of the town? Would you, who are reading this, for example, like to live _your_ life over again? What has been its chief joy? What are to-day’s pleasures? Are they so exquisite that you would prolong them for ever? Would you like to have the roast beef on which you have dined brought back again to table, and have more beef, and more, and more? Would you like to hear yesterday’s sermon over and over again—eternally voluble? Would you like to get on the Edinburgh mail, and travel outside for fifty hours as you did in your youth? You might as well say you would like to go into the flogging-room, and take a turn under the rods: you would like to be thrashed over again by your bully at school: you would like to go to the dentist’s, where your dear parents were in the habit of taking you: you would like to be taking hot Epsom salts, with a piece of dry bread to take away the taste: you would like to be jilted by your first love: you would like to be going in to your father to tell him you had contracted debts to the amount of _x_ + _y_ + _z_, whilst you were at the university. As I consider the passionate griefs of childhood, the weariness and sameness of shaving, the agony of corns, and the thousand other ills to which flesh is heir, I cheerfully say for one, I am not anxious to wear it for ever. No. I do not want to go to school again. I do not want to hear Trotman’s sermon over again. Take me out and finish me. Give me the cup of hemlock at once. Here’s a health to you, my lads. Don’t weep, my Simmias. Be cheerful, my Phædon. Ha! I feel the co-o-old stealing, stealing upwards. Now it is in my ankles—no more gout in my foot: now my knees are numb. What, is—is that poor executioner crying too? Good-bye. Sacrifice a cock to Æscu—to Æscula— ... Have you ever read the chapter in Grote’s _History_? Ah! When the Sacred Ship returns from Delos, and is telegraphed as entering into port, may we be at peace and ready!