exposed to decay and death; yet in the disposition of intelligent nature, the Great Disposer of events has obviously made discriminations between individuals of the same general constituents. Some examples, though very rare, are to be found of extreme longevity, in every climate of the habitable globe, and such examples are common to all countries without distinction.

England, which is highly extolled for the salubrity of its climate, has furnished but three or four examples of men, arriving at the age of from 150 to 169, while Hungary, which, generally speaking, is not a very healthy country, has seen the celebrated Peter Cyartan, prolong his life to the 185th year, and John Rovin, at the age of 172, had a wife of 164, and a younger son of 117. It is in the Bannat of Temeswar a very marshy district, and subject to the putrid fever, that these examples of longevity and many others, have been observed. It is said that Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, are the countries which furnish the most numerous and the most authentic examples of men and women, having had their lives extended beyond the period of 100 years. In these countries, we may reckon one centenarian for every three or four thousand individuals.*

According to the author of a very curious little work,

* Malte Brun's Physical Geography, B. 22, p. 195.

called the apology for fasting, 152 Hermits taken in all ages, and under every climate, produce a sum total of 11,589 years of life; and consequently an average of 76 years and about three months for each. From these sketches of the history of longevity, or from the knowledge of it, which can be obtained from the history of our own times and country, the examples of those who have lived to a very protracted age, are found to be very rare; and among those very few whose have exceeded eighty or ninety, a very small proportion have retained their faculties in that vigour which would enable them to participate in the common enjoyments or perform the necessary duties of life. Neither has it been discovered, that any particular climate, any peculiar locality, or extraneous incidents, have had any special agency in protracting the lives of those who have been distinguished for longevity.

years

Although it may have been proved from the lessons of physical science, and the philosophy of the vital principle, that some certain climates or peculiar seasons, may be more likely to consider to the health and the preservation of the human constitution than others, yet it is very obvious from the examples which have been mentioned, and other instances of unusual longevity, which have happened in every age, throughout the most unhealthy sections of the habitable world, that the means

of protracting life, and preserving the constitution in its vigour, are, if I may use the expression, personal in their nature and effects, depending on its peculiar organization, and the adaption of such habits and manners of living, as are best suited to protect its operations.

By a peculiar organization, we are not to understand one differing from others, in any of those constituents, which have been found to be common, and believed to be essential; those to give to the human constitution its greatest perfectability, we may conclude, are equal and uniform in all, that is, in their number and form; but from circumstances easier conceived than explained, differing in degrees of vigour and capacity for duration.

Yet we see those who exhibit the most obvious equality in the vigour and durability of their constitutions, have very unequal limits affixed to their duration; and that those whose hold on life, appears most feeble and uncertain, are, in some instances, enabled to protract their existence, beyond those whose capacity for duration, seem obviously to encourage more confident anticipations of long life.

From these considerations of the human condition we are forced to the conclusion, that although much may be owing to the peculiar constituents of individuals, yet not less is due to the wise adaption of such habits and

modes of living, as are best suited to protract the existence of those who are destined to longevity.

Although man is doomed eventually to yield all the vigour, the perfectability, and wisdom of his nature, a final sacrifice to the devastation of time, yet it is obvious, the same Supreme Power, which has enstamped mortality on human existence, has conferred on man the means of protracting its period. As the most finished and correct chronometer or time piece will become equally useless, as one of the most imperfect organization, in unskillful and careless hands, so the most perfect human frame, equally with the enfeebled and imperfect constitution, may be expected not to reach the period assigned to it, by its original faculties, but become subject to premature decay and dissolution, if the elements of life, which nature has provided for its preservation, are not judiciously applied to their appropriate uses.

Those who are not inclined to censure customs and habits, which lead to the premature decay of our nature, and the moral and temporal evils which may accompany them, are sometimes disposed to ascribe every event to inevitable fatality, or the result of mere accident; and to evince the correctness of their views, point us to the various habits and manners of those who attain to an unusual age.

It is true, that some men of irregular and intemperate lives, live to an extraordinary age. The texture of their constitutions will admit of it. The adoption of such habits as the constitution will bear, is indispensable to the preserving and protracting of life. But because. the constitutions of some individuals enable them to struggle through the effects of intemperate habits, it does not justify the experiment, nor prove that a different course of living would not be more conducive to their health and happiness.

The testimony of universal observation and experience, confirm the correctness of the opinion, that sober, abstemuous and industrious habits, with a mind unruffled with the violence and tumult of passion, conduce most to the preservation of health, and the protracting of human life.

If we have sufficient evidence to justify the hypothesis of a celebrated and enlightened physician,* that a certain stock of vital force, is imparted to the embryo, at its first formation, as a provision for carrying it through its destined career of existence, the very aged have peculiar claims to a distinction, so ardently and universally desired, and so rarely conferred on man, by the Great Disposer of events.

*Dr. P. M. Roget,