_"The Worm in the Bud," &c._ (Vol. iv., p. 86.).--This quotation is from
Cowper's lines appended to the Bill of Mortality for the parish of All
Saints, Northampton, for 1787:
"Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age."
I know not with whom the idea originated. The imagery is frequently used
by Shakspeare, but with him never indicates disease or death.