No disease is more mischievous to weak old persons than a purging: and I have seen this brought on instantly by a fit of passion; or by a fright. Medicines have attempted to relieve the patient in vain. That flux which would have been stop’d, if natural, by a spoonful of chalk julep, or a dose of diascordium, has in this case reduced the person to a skeleton, and sunk him into the grave in spite of all help. Why should the old man disturb his mind with anger? or what should he dread? death is his great terror; and he is very absurd who brings that on by lesser fears. Joy, tho’ it be only a greater share of satisfaction, is, in a violent or outrageous degree, as hurtful as the other passions: it hurries the circulation vehemently and irregularly; it exhausts the spirits; and when excessive it has often occasioned sudden death. It is a violence of youth; it belongs to that period of life more properly: that can bear it; and to that let us leave it. Let the old man be as the Quakers in this point; always chearful but never merry. Last let us caution also the aged man who would be happy, and would live longer, to combat with all his power that dangerous enemy covetousness. ’Tis known universally, and we have sacred attestation of it, that too great carefulness brings age before its time; and in age it brings death prematurely. The old are in no danger of extravagance; and the care of heaping up for others, when it shortens their own life, is more than any heir deserves. Ease and good humour are the great ingredients of a happy life: and the principal means of a long one. Our whole lesson extends but thus much farther; that the old man love his life so well; and value so little all the accidents which belong to it, that he do not give a vain attention to a part, which may rob him of the whole. CHAP. IX. _Of sleep for old men._ Intemperance has now converted day to night in the course of the gay, young world; but this needs not, nor should influence those in years. Midnight entertainments are no part of the œconomy of their peaceful lives; and therefore they may come nearer to the course of nature. The degree of sleep is a material article: and the time of it not less. The old man has been cautioned against the cold air of evenings; and we may now add, that after a light and early supper, and an hour of social conversation with his family and his neighbours, bed will be his best place. Sleep was intended to recruit nature, and to restore the wasted spirits. This is necessary to all persons; but to the aged most; because they can least bear the waste of them. The passions will disturb all constitutions, but those of old men most of all. Sleep composes these: therefore ’tis of excellent use to them: and they may safely indulge in it longer than the young.