Be pleased to accept my humble duty for the notice you have condescended to take of me. I will do my best to shake a little animation into my master for a few days or months or possibly years. But what is the prospect before him? What can he expect? or hope? or wish? He is 77 and more; three and twenty years will make him 100; thirteen years will make him 90; three years will bring him to four score. And what are three, thirteen, or three and twenty years at any stage of life, in infancy, manhood, or old age? especially in extreme old age? How many pains and aches, which I cannot shake away, has he to endure? How much low spirits? How many gloomy, anxious moments for the dangers, disgraces, disasters, degeneracy, vices, follies, ignorance, stupidity, and vanity of his country? How many wives, daughters, sons, grandchildren, brothers, cousins may he lose in 23, 13, or 3 years? How many of the few remaining public political friends must disappear? Even Dr. Rush himself? Oh! If he were to read this, he would shed many tears. Pray conceal it from him! But there are other things. How much ecclesiastical bigotry, superstition, and persecution may he have to bewail? How much calumny, intrigue, party spirit, political fury, and civil war may he have to deplore? I will leave the rest, Sir, to your profound reflections. I will only compare the forgoing periods with some of his past life. Fifteen years he spent at schools, male and female, grammar and ABC. When he played truant, and when he did not, he spent all his mornings, noons, and nights in making and sailing boats, in swimming, skating, flying kites, and shooting in marbles, ninepins, bat and ball, football, etc., etc., etc., quoits, wrestling, and sometimes boxing etc., etc., etc., and what was no better, running about to quiltings and huskings and frolics and dances among the boys and girls!!! These 15 years went off like a fairy tale. Apply such a 15 years to his present age and it will make 93.

He then spent 4 years at college. He had begun to love a book. Farewell, shooting, skating, swimming and all the rest. Oh! the mathematics, the metaphysics, the logic, not forgetting classics! Seeking books and bookish boys, devouring books without advice and without judgment. The 4 years were gone like a tale that is told. Add such a 4 years to his present age and it will make him 81.

He then passed 3 years at Worcester, among black-letter French and Latin law, and kept school to pay for the privilege. The 3 years were gone seemingly in the twinkling of an eye. Add such a three years to his present age and it will make him 80. He then removed to Braintree, County of Suffolk, in Massachusetts, where he spent 17 years at the bar, riding circuits, getting money and a wife and children. But the 17 years flew away like the morning cloud. Add 17 such years and you will make him 90. Four years were then spend in Congress, you know how. But they were gone like a dream. Add 4 such years to his present age, and you make him 81. Then he was ten years in Europe, on the mountain wave, over the hills and far away. But the 10 years were gone he scarcely knew how. Add 10 such and they will make him 87. He had then an interval of eight or nine months. Then he was 8 years Vice-President, a target for archers, a constant object of the billingsgate, scurrility, misapprehensions, misconstructions, misrepresentations, lies, and libels of all parties. These 8 went away like a nauseous fog. Add such an 8 to his age, and you make him 85. He was then President for 4 years. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Vanity of vanities, all was vanity! Add such a four years and you would infallibly kill him long before he would be 81. Twelve years have passed in solitude, far the pleasantest of all; yet where are they? Gone like the dew, the blossoms, the flowers, and the leaves. Add such another 12 and you make him 89; withered, faded, wrinkled, tottering, trembling, stumbling, sighing, groaning, weeping! Oh! I have some scruples of a conscience, whether I ought to preserve him; whether it would not be charity to stumble and relieve him from such a futurity. Add only 24 such years as have passed since his return from Europe to America and you make him 101, and object of wonder and of pity to a gaping, staring world!

And now, my venerable, learned, philosophical, religious, virtuous, excellent Sir, permit me to ask whether this address is not as monitory a moral essay as any in Johnson's Rambler or his Prince of Abyssinia? Remember, too, it is a Horse that asks the question, and that Horse is

Hobby

To which Rush responded on January 8:

... Remember me most gratefully to my friend Hobby, and thank him for his admirable letter. Read my lecture to him on the veterinary art, and tell him of my regard for his whole species...