IN PRAISE OF THE ELDERLY
S[HEAFE], T[homas].
Vindiciae senectutis, or, a Plea for Old-Age: which is senis cujusdam cygnea cantio. And the several Points or Parts of it, are laid downe at the End of the following Introduction …
London, George Mither and are to be sold by Joshua Kirton, and Thomas Warren, 1639.
Small 8vo, pp. [30], 6–210, [11], with an initial blank; the title-page (A2) is a cancel; title-page within a printed border; woodcut head-pieces and initials; inkblots to A3r and H1r affecting several lines, else a very good copy in contemporary sheep, spine worn and dry, corners bumped.
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Vindiciae senectutis, or, a Plea for Old-Age: which is senis cujusdam cygnea cantio. And the several Points or Parts of it, are laid downe at the End of the following Introduction …
First edition of a rare encomium on senectitude by the eighty-year-old canon of Windsor, Thomas Sheafe, who died later in 1639, dedicated to the supremely long-lived divine Laurence Chaderton (1536?–1640), first Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This is the rarer second issue, with a cancel title-page adding the booksellers’ names to the imprint.
‘Are wee in old-age quite worne out and good for nothing?’ Sheafe asks incredulously, arguing systematically that bodily strength is inferior to wisdom and experience, that old men are to be preferred as both generals and in the pulpit, that they are less prey to the temptation of carnal pleasures, or the ‘wild-goose-race’ of personal liberty, and that the young no less than the old are subject to accidental calamity and disease. The second book (pp. 161 ff.) deals with the special privileges of old age.
ESTC records only four complete copies of the first issue, and two of the present issue (Huntington and Folger).
ESTC S117210; STC 22392.
