Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/185

175 the other a muſcheto; in which diſpute they ſpent their time, ſeemingly as regardleſs of the ſhortneſs of life as if they had been ſure of living a month. Happy people! thought I, you live certainly under a wiſe, juſt, and mild government, ſince you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any ſubject of contention, but the perfections or imperfections of foreign muſic. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was ſingle on another leaf, and talking to himſelf. Being amuſed with his ſoliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will like wiſe amuſe her to whom I am ſo much indebted for the moſt pleaſing of all amuſements, her delicious company, and heavenly harmony.

"It was," ſays he, "the opinion of learned philoſophers of our race, who lived and flouriſhed long before my time, that this vaſt world the Moulin Joly could not itſelf ſubſiſt more than eighteen hours: and I think there was ſome foundation for that opinion; ſince, by the apparent motion of the great luminary, that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it muſt then finiſh its courſe, be extinguished in the waters that ſurround us, and leave the world in cold and darkneſs, neceſſarily producing univerſal death and deduction. I have lived ſeven of thoſe hours; a great age, being no leſs than 420 minutes of time. How very few of us continue ſo long? I have ſeen generations born, flouriſh, and expire. My preſent friends are the children and grand-children of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I muſt ſoon follow them; for, by the courſe of nature, though ſtill in health, I cannot expect to live above ſeven or eight minutes longer.