Not that the length of life is to be measured by years.

I don't know but what it's possible to cram one's whole existence into a few hours, thanks to that thief of time," rejoined John Gay pointing to the bottle on the table.
The poet's placid face saddened.

John Gay had always taken life as a pleasure, but there is no pleasure without pain as he had come to discover.

Maybe at that moment a recollection of his follies gave his conscience a tinge.

Of Gay it might be said that he had no enemies other than himself.
"Oh, the passing hour is the best doubtless, since we never know whether the next may not be the worst," laughed Henry St.John, Lord Bolingbroke.