Deep-thinking philosophers have at all times been distinguished by their
great age, especially when their philosophy was occupied in the study of
Nature, and afforded them the divine pleasure of discovering new and
important truths,—the purest enjoyment; a beneficial exaltation of
ourselves, and a kind of restoration which may be ranked among the
principal means of prolonging the life of a perfect being. The most
ancient instances are to be found among the Stoics and the Pythagoreans,
according to whose ideas subduing the passions and sensibility, with the
observation of strict regimen, were the most essential duties of a
philosopher. Thus, we have the examples of a Plato and an Isocrates.
Apollonius of Tyana, an accomplished man, endowed with extraordinary
powers both of body and mind, who by the Christians was considered as a
magician, and by the Greeks and Romans as a messenger of the gods, in
his regimen a follower of Pythagoras, and a friend to travelling, was
above 100 years of age. Xenophilus, a Pythagorean also, lived 106 years.
The philosopher Demonax, a man of the most severe manners and uncommon
stoical apathy, lived likewise 100. Even in modern times philosophers
seem to have obtained this preëminence; and the deepest thinkers appear
in that respect to have enjoyed, in a higher degree, the fruits of their
mental tranquillity. Kepler and Bacon both attained to a great age; and
Newton, who found all his happiness and pleasure in the higher spheres,
attained to the age of 84. Euler, a man of incredible industry, whose
works on the most abstruse subjects amount to above three hundred,
approached near to the same age; and Kant, who reached the age of 80,
showed that philosophy not only can preserve life, but that it is the
most faithful companion of the greatest age, and an inexhaustible source
of happiness to one’s self and to others. Academicians, in this respect,
have been particularly distinguished. We need only mention the venerable
Fontenelle,[58] who wanted but one year of a hundred, and that Nestor,
Formey; both perpetual secretaries, the former of the French, and the
latter of the Berlin Academy.
We find also many instances of long life among schoolmasters, so that
one might almost believe that continual intercourse with youth may
contribute something towards our renovation and support. But poets and
artists, in short all those fortunate mortals whose principal occupation
leads them to be conversant with the sports of fancy and self-created
worlds, and whose whole life, in the properest sense, is an agreeable
dream, have a particular claim to a place in the history of longevity.
Anacreon, Sophocles, and Pindar attained a great age. Young, Voltaire,
Bodmer, Haller, Metastasio, Gleim, Utz, and Oeser, all lived to be very
old; and Wieland, the prince of German poets, lived to the age of 80.
(See _Wilson on Longevity_.)
Among the clergy are several remarkable instances. The venerable Bishop
Hough, the Cato of Sir Thomas Bernard’s _Comforts of Old Age_, through
an extraordinary degree of health of body and mind, attained the age of
92. “Blessed be God for his great mercies to me! I have to-day entered
my ninetieth year, with less infirmity than I could have presumed to
hope, and certainly with a degree of calmness and tranquillity of mind,
which is gradually increasing as I daily approach the end of my
pilgrimage. I think, indeed, that my life must now be but of short
duration; and, I thank God, the thought gives me no uneasiness.”[59]
Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, after he had been deprived and
ejected from Lambeth, for refusing to take any new oaths to William and
Mary, retired to his paternal estate, of 50_l._ a year, at Fresingfield,
in Suffolk, his birthplace. He was then approaching fourscore; and here
he was visited by Bishop Hough, in 1693.
I found him (says the Bishop) working in his garden, and taking
advantage of a shower of rain which had fallen to transplant some
lettuces. I was struck with the profusion of his vegetables, the
beauty and luxuriance of his fruit-trees, and the richness and
fragrance of his flowers, and noticed the taste which had directed
every thing. “You must not compliment too hastily (says he) on the
_directions_ which I have given. Almost all you see is the work of
my own hands. My old woman does the weeding, and John mows my turf
and digs for me; but all the nicer work,—the sowing, grafting,
budding, transplanting, and the like,—I trust to no other hand but
my own; so long, at least, as my health will allow me to enjoy so
pleasing an occupation. And in good sooth (added he) the fruits here
taste more sweet, and the flowers have a richer perfume, than they
had at Lambeth.” I looked up to our deprived metropolitan with more
respect, and thought his gardening-dress shed more splendour over
him, than ever his robes and lawn-sleeves could have done when he
was the first subject in this great kingdom.[60]
The Rev. Mr. Sampson, Incumbent of Keyham, Leicestershire, who died
1655, is stated by Thoresby to have held the living of his parish 92
years; so that he could scarcely be less than 116 years old.
The Rev. R. Lufkin, Rector of Ufford, Suffolk, died September 1678, aged
110, having preached the Sunday before he died.
Morton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who died 1695, aged 95,
constantly rose at four o’clock to his studies when he was 80 years old;
he usually lay upon a straw bed, and seldom exceeded one meal a day.
Here are two lengthy incumbencies: “1753, December 22. Rev. Mr.
Braithwaite, of Carlisle, [died] aged 110. He had been 100 years in the
cathedral, having commenced singing-boy in the year 1652.” “1763. Rev.
Peter Alley (Rector of Donamow, Ireland, 73 years), [died] in the 111th
year of his age. He did his own duty till within a few days of his
death; he was twice married, and had thirty-three children.”[61]
The Rev. John Bedwell, Rector of Odstock, near Salisbury, according to
the Bishop’s registry, held that benefice 73 years; and, by the parish
register, died at the age of 108.
The Rev. S. W. Warneford, the munificent benefactor to colleges and
schools, died 1855, aged 92; and Maltby, Bishop of Durham, 1859, at 90.
Soldiers who survive the chances of war are proverbial for long life:
there are several instances recorded in the Chelsea Hospital
burial-ground. The lists of the survivors of England’s great battles
present instances ranging from 100 to 120 years.[62] The oldest General
of our time was Marshal Count Joseph Radetzsky, who died January 5,
1858, in his 92d year.
“History only mentions a single man who, at such an advanced age,
commanded an army in the field; and that was Dandolo, the Doge of
Venice, who was 95 years of age, and almost blind, when he commanded the
Venetians in the great Crusade, and who was the first to enter
Constantinople at the time of the assault on it in 1203. Talbot, Earl of
Shrewsbury, was 83 years old when he commanded in Guienne, in 1453; but
he was killed in the same year at the battle of Chatillon. Fuentes,
General of the Spanish troops at the battle of Rocroy, in 1643, was 82;
but he was gouty, and was carried in an arm-chair. He fell in that
battle, and with him disappeared the glory of the Spanish arms. The
Prussian Field-Marshal Mollendorf was present, in his 82d year, at the
defeat of Auerstadt, but not as commander-in-chief. One octogenarian of
modern times has been more fortunate than the preceding, and that is
Marshal de Villars, who, in his 81st year, undertook the campaign of
1712, crowned by the victory of Denain, which saved the French
monarchy.”[63]
Quakers attain great ages. In the Obituary of the _Friend_ Magazine,
1860, we find the following ages of some deceased members of the Society
of Friends: 84, 84, 85, 85, 85, 86, 86, 87, 87, 88, 88, 89, 89, 89, 91,
91, 91, 91, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93—making a total of 2128 years, with an
average for each life of rather more than 88½ years. Fifty lives in the
same period give 4258 years, with an average of 85 per life. The average
duration of life in the Society of Friends during 1860 was 58 years and
6 months; but one girl died under 6 months old; five girls and thirteen
boys—in all eighteen out of the 324, or 5½ per cent—did not reach the
age of one year.
Hard-workers are often long livers. Hobson, the noted Cambridge carrier,
died on New-year’s Day, 1630-1, it is said in his 86th year. His visits
to London were suspended on account of the Plague, and during this
cessation he died; whereupon Milton remarked that Death would never have
hit him had he continued dodging it backwards and forwards between
Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate.
One John King, of Nokes, Oxon, died in 1766, at the age of 130: he was a
farm-labourer, and at the age of 128 walked to and from the market at
Oxford—twelve miles. One Wilks, a farm-labourer, of Stourbridge,
Worcestershire, who died 1777, aged 109, was suspected by his ignorant
neighbours of having purchased the secret of long life from a witch with
whom he had become acquainted.
An Irish fisherman, Jonas Warren, who died 1787, Mr. Bailey states, at
167, had for ninety-five years drawn his subsistence from the ocean.
Another fisherman, Worrell, of Dunwich, Suffolk, died 1789, aged 119,
having fished till he was 107.
On June 3, 1862, there died at his farm, Tullyskerra, near
Castleblayney, Gilbert Hand, at the advanced age of 105 years. Two days
before his death deceased travelled round his farm, apparently taking
his last farewell of the fields in which he so often toiled.
Of Ephraim Pratt, who was living at Shaftesbury, U.S., in 1803, aged 116
years, the Rev. Timothy Dwight relates that he had mown grass 101 years
successively. He drank large quantities of milk, and in his latter years
it was almost his sole sustenance. His descendants, to the fifth
generation, it was publicly stated, numbered more than 1500 persons.
Margaret Woods, of Great Waltham, who died 1797, aged 100, had, with her
ancestors, lived in the service of one Essex family for 400 years.
Here is well-authenticated evidence of long service from Sussex. At
Battle is the gravestone of Isaac Ingoll, who died April 2, 1798, aged
120 years; his register is to be seen in the parish, and he lived 101
years in the service of the Webster family, of Battle Abbey, having
entered it at the age of 19.[64]
Philip Palfreman, who had been box-keeper at the first Covent Garden
Theatre in Garrick’s time, died in 1768, aged 100: he almost lived in
the theatre, and by his thrift saved a fortune of 10,000_l._ In 1845
died William Ward, aged 98, of the Sun Fire Office, London, where he had
filled a situation seventy years.
Jockeys, from the severe effects of training, are proverbially
short-lived; yet John Scott, of Brighton, once a jockey, reached the age
of 96.
Great pedestrian feats have been performed by very old men. Mr. M’Leod,
of Inverness, who died 1790, aged 102, two years previously walked from
Inverness to London (five hundred miles) in nineteen days: he had served
in Marlborough’s wars.
On May 28, 1802, a lunatic named James Coyle, 47 years old, was admitted
a patient into St. Patrick’s (Swift’s) Hospital, Dublin: he continued
there upwards of fifty-eight years, and eventually died July 17, 1860,
at the age of 105. There can surely be no mistake as to this great age.
Peter Breman, of Dyott-street, St. Giles’s, London, is one of the few
instances on record of long life attained by tall men: he stood 6 feet 6
inches high, and was in the army from the age of 18 nearly until his
decease, in 1769, at the age of 104 years. Another tall man, Edmund
Barry, of Watergrass-hill, Ireland, died 1822, aged 113: he was 6 feet 2
inches in height, and walked well to the last.
One John Minniken, of Maryport, Cumberland, who died 1793, aged 112, was
remarkable for the fast growth and profusion of his hair, which he sold,
in successive croppings, to a hairdresser of the town, for a penny a
day, during the remainder of his life; and more than seventy wigs were
made of Minniken’s hair.
Among aged persons of diminutive stature was Mary Jones, of Wem, Salop,
who died 1773, aged 100: she was only 2 feet 8 inches in height. Elspeth
Watson, of Perth, who died 1800, aged 115, did not exceed 2 feet 9
inches in height, but was bulky in person.
Old age can rarely withstand intense grief. John Tice, of Hagley,
Worcestershire, having recovered from a fall out of a tree when he was
80 years old, and from being much burned when he was 100, after the
death of his patron, Lord Lyttleton, became so depressed in spirits,
that he took to his bed and died. Sir Francis Burdett had withstood the
storms and tumults of political life for more than half a century, and
had reached the age of 74, when his dear wife died, Jan. 10, 1844: from
that instant Sir Francis refused food or nourishment of any kind, and he
died of intense grief on the 23d of the same month: both were buried in
the same vault, in the same hour, on the same day, in the church of
Ramsbury, Wilts.
Cardinal Fleury, the great French minister, who died in 1743, had
attained the age of 90. For fourteen years he essentially contributed to
the peace and prosperity of France; but the three last years of his
administration were unfortunate. On the death of the Emperor Charles
XI., in 1740, without male issue, a war ensued respecting the imperial
succession, the calamitous events of which preyed on the Cardinal’s mind
and occasioned his death.
Sir John Floyer, Physician to Queen Anne, seems to have found the golden
mean of happiness. He died in 1734; four years previous to which he
visited Bishop Hough, at Hartlebury. “Sir John Floyer (writes the Bishop
to a friend) has been with me some weeks; and all my neighbours are
surprised to see a man of eighty-five, who has his memory,
understanding, and all his senses good; and seems to labour under no
infirmity. _He is of a happy temper, not to be moved with what he cannot
remedy;_ which I really believe has, in a great measure, helped to
preserve his health and prolong his days.” This is the grand secret. Sir
John wrote a curious Essay on Cold Bathing, among the benefits of which
he does not omit long life.
Dr. Cheyne, the Scottish physician, of this period, in his well-known
Essay, advocates strict regimen for preventing and curing diseases: by
milk and vegetable diet he reduced himself from thirty-two stone weight
almost a third, recovered his strength, activity, and cheerfulness, and
attained the good age of 72.
Jeremy Bentham, the eminent philosophical jurist and writer on
legislation, died in 1832, in Queen-square-place, Westminster, where he
had resided nearly half a century, in his 85th year. Up to extreme old
age he retained much of the intellectual power of the prime of manhood,
the simplicity and freshness of early youth; and even in the last
moments of his existence the serenity and cheerfulness of his mind did
not desert him. “He was capable,” says Dr. Southwood Smith, to whom he
bequeathed his body for purposes of anatomical science, in the lecture
delivered over his remains, “of great severity and continuity of mental
labour. For upwards of half a century he devoted seldom less than eight,
often ten, and occasionally twelve hours of every day to intense study.
This was the more remarkable as his physical constitution was by no
means strong. His health during the periods of childhood, youth, and
adolescence was infirm; it was not until the age of manhood that it
acquired some degree of vigour; but that vigour increased with advancing
age, so that during the space of sixty years he never laboured under any
serious malady, and rarely suffered even from slight indisposition; and
at the age of 84 he looked no older, and constitutionally was not older,
than most men are at 60; thus adding another illustrious name to the
splendid catalogue which establishes the fact, that severe and constant
mental labour is not incompatible with health and longevity, but
conducive to both, provided the mind be unanxious and the habits
temperate.
“He was a great economist of time. He knew the value of minutes. The
disposal of his hours, both of labour and of repose, was a matter of
systematic arrangement; and the arrangement was determined on the
principle that it is a calamity to lose the smallest portion of time. He
did not deem it sufficient to provide against the loss of a day or an
hour; he took effectual means to prevent the occurrence of any such
calamity to him. But he did more: he was careful to provide against the
loss of even a single minute; and there is on record no example of a
human being who lived more habitually under the practical consciousness
that his days are numbered, and that ‘the night cometh in which no man
can work.’”
It should, however, be added, that Mr. Bentham’s lot in life was a happy
one. Even though he did not enjoy a widely diffused reputation in his
own country, and his peculiar views exposed him to the attacks of
contemporary writers, his easy circumstances and excellent health
enabled him to devote his whole time and energies to those pursuits
which exercised his highest faculties, and were to him a rich and
unfailing source of the most delightful excitement. His retired habits
likewise preserved him from personal contact with any but those who
valued his acquaintance; and as for the writers who spoke of him with
ridicule and contempt, he never read them, and therefore they never
disturbed the serenity of his mind, or ruffled the tranquil surface of
his contemplative and happy life.
It would be well for public writers if they possessed more of such
equanimity as Mr. Bentham’s, to shield them from the venom of adverse
criticism and the attacks of those dishonest critics who abuse every
indication of success which they conceive to stand in the way of their
own advancement. We have something of the old leaven of Grub-street in
our times, though the name is blotted out from our metropolitan
streetology. It is true that the patronage of great men is no longer
valued by men of letters,—it is but as dust in the balance against the
weight of public opinion,—but something of the old trade of factious
criticism which Swift, Pope, and Warburton so mercilessly exposed, has
survived even to our days.
Mr. Thackeray, to our thinking one of the most masculine and unaffected
writers of his day, has well described the Grub-street association of
“author and rags—author and dirt—author and gin,” such as were the
literary hacks of the reign of George II.; but literature now takes its
rank with other learned professions.
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Footnote 58:
Fontenelle attributed his longevity to a good course of strawberry
eating every season: his only ailment was fever in the spring; when he
used to say, “If I can only hold out till strawberries come in, I
shall get well.” His long life may, however, rather be attributed to
his insensibility, of which he himself boasted: he was rarely known to
laugh or cry.
Footnote 59:
Bishop Hough; _Comforts of Old Age_.
Footnote 60:
Ibid.
Footnote 61:
_Selections Gent. Mag._ vol. iv. p. 299.
Footnote 62:
See _Choice Notes_ (History), pp. 170-177; and Military Centenarians,
_Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 232, pp. 238, 239, for several
well-authenticated records.
Footnote 63:
_Morning Advertiser._
Footnote 64:
_Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 250.
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