{"newspaper_name": "The Washingtonian.", "edition": "01", "page": "p2", "byline": ""}
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fHs AESp ~ ADVANCED Asx.-Ameng
othsr arguments for the cultivation OF the intel.
lect. there is one to be drawn from the perpet.
ual progress of the mind towards perfection.
without possibility of ever arriving at it.
The infant body springs into boyhood, hardens


into manhood, dwindles down to the decay Of
age, and returns to the dust from which it was
formed The mind runs similar career in its
onward progress, but not in its retrogression
Though the inroads of disease, or the feeble.
ness of sensibility, may fetter its powers and
obscure their brightness, yet the fact that intel


ect is frequently retained in its pristine vigor
by the advanced in years, is an argument that
the mind does not necessarily retrograde in old
age. In one morning Of advanced life, Johnson
amused himself by committing to memory 800
lines of Virgil. At the age of 70, when stag
gering under an immediate attack of paralysis :
sufficiently severe to render him speechess--
he composed a Latin prayer, in order to test the
loss or retention of his mental faculties. Nor
is this solitary instance. One of the most
beautiful sonnets in the English language was
composed by Mason, on the attainment Of his
I'D birthday. Locke at 72, and Newton at
"a, retained their faculties in undated vigor.
The feeble frame of the Earl of Chatham, at 70,
sank under the effort to express the convictions
of his mighty mind, after speech SO sngularly
eloquent, bold, ardent, and animated, as to rival,
if not out-vie, the most brilliant outpourngs of
his youth or early manhood-Rer. Sir j. P.
Wood.