The Gazette

CIRCLE OF HUMAN LIFE

THE seven stages of life, from the soft dawn of life to the gates of death, are thus described by Gratian, as under the influence of the seven planets.

Childhood is governed by the moon, and with her influence receives her imperfections. Its light is soft and watery, without heat enough to produce distinct ideas. It is changeable too, and neither knows what agrees with or appetites it. Yielding like wax to all impression, & mouldable as paste, it passes gradually from the darkness of total ignorance, to a twilight of apprehension.

From ten to twenty, Mercury succeeds to the charge, imparting that docility with which the boy takes the learning that is given him, and two often that which he will wish to unlearn. He rises in the school, and fills his understanding with truth & falsehood, as chance determines the place of his education.

At twenty Venus takes the sceptre and reigns with tyranny till thirty, makes cruel war against his youth, breathing into him her hottest fires, and feasting his imagination with ideas of gallantry and love.

At thirty, the sun rises, and diffuses that light and heat which warms and irradiates the meridian man, and makes him pant for worth, fame and distinction. He undertakes honourable employments with spirit, becomes so far useful to his family and country, and illuminates, ripens and perfects everything.

At forty, Mars owns him for his subject, infuses into him courage rightly tempered, and gives him command in the field. He is punctilious, mettle-some, haughty, fierce & bitter, apt to quarrel, and ready to repel revenge and injury.

At fifty, Jupiter succeeds, the lord of his ascendant, conferring state and sovereignty. Man is now master of his actions, he speaks & acts with authority, does not take it well to be controlled by others, but aspires after universal dominion; takes his resolutions upon himself, & executes his own suggestions. In this stage, reason and virtue are triumphant.

At sixty, the melancholy Saturn makes it fight with man: his morning returns no more: but diseases and infirmities succeed. He sees his own end near, and he wishes that the world may end with him. He lives tired of, and tormenting everybody, peevish and snarling, like an old cur, Answering the present and looking over the past. Languid and stammering in his speech, slow to undertake, and ineffectual in his endeavours, sordid and narrow in his expenses, disgustful in his person, careless of his dress, destitute of hospitality, complaining: at all hours and at all things. Thus he lives on till seventy, and may perhaps sometimes languish till eighty: but from thence forward all is pain and misery, till the hour of death.

After the circulation of these and Saturn, the moon rises her influence over the second childhood. Now returns infancy with all the perils of decrepitude. His time is come round like a wheel, to the same point: and ending as he began, he may be timed by the serpent biting his tail: ingenious hieroglyphic of the circle described by human life.