_Longevity_ (Vol. viii., p. 113.).--I do not think any of your
correspondents has noticed the case of John Whethamstede, Abbot of St.
Albans, who wrote a Chronicle of the period between 1441 and 1461: "He was
ordained a priest in 1382, and died in 1464, when he had been eighty-two
years in priest's orders, and was above one hundred years old." Surely this
is a case sufficiently authenticated for your more sceptical readers.
(Henry's _History of Great Britain_, 2nd ed., Lond. 1788, vol. x. p. 132.)