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 fac

tious 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.

To return to Longevity. The following additional instances are mostly of our own time:

Among Lawyers, Francis Maseres, fifty years Cursitor-Baron of the Court of Exchequer, died 1824, at the age of 93: he was a ripe classical scholar, and one of the ablest mathematicians of his day. The Eldon family present three noteworthy examples: Mr. Scott, the Newcastle merchant, father of Lord Stowell and the Earl of Eldon, died 1800, at the age of 92: the two eminent sons, Stowell, 1836, at 91, and Eldon, 1838, at 87. Lord Plunket, the statesman and lawyer, who died 1854, had reached 90. Lord Chancellor Campbell, who in his busy law-life wrote many volumes of biography, attained the age of 81.

Sir William Blizard, the Surgeon, who died in 1835, in his 94th year, rose to eminence under many disadvantages. With all his activity and industry, except a fever caught by working night and day in the dissecting-room, his health never failed him till the last; he was temperate; and the only wine he drank was Cape. Sir William Burnett, the phy sician and scientific inventor, reached 82.

In 1862 two eminent Mathematicians died within a month of each other Jean Baptiste Biot, aged 88; and Peter Barlow, 86. Prof. Narrien, of Sandhurst, died 1860, at 77; and, same year and age, Finlaison, the actuary.

Francis Place, the Westminster Politician, who died 1854, had reached 82. The Duc de Pasquier, the celebrated French statesman, attained the great age of 96: he died 1862, and was the oldest statesman of our time. Talleyrand, next to Napoleon the most extraordinary man of the revolutionary period of France, died 1838, aged 84.

The oldest Poets of our time were W. L. Bowles, 1850, aged 88; same year, Wordsworth, poet-laureate, 80; James Montgomery, 1854, at 82; Samuel Rogers, 1855, aged 96; Arndt, the German poet, 1860, at 91; and Dr. Croly, the poet and divine, 86.

Mitscherlich, the German Philologist, died 1854, at 94; same year, Gresnall, biographer, 89, and Faber, theologian, 80. Hamner-Purgstall, the Oriental historian, who died 1856, had attained 87; 1857, Hincks, the Orientalist, 90.

Sir John Stoddart, the Newspaper editor, who died 1855, had reached 85,- -a rare age for a public journalist. John Sharpe, the tasteful littérateur, who died 1860, reached 83.

Dr. Lingard, the Historian, died 1851, aged 82. In 1859, Hallam, the historian; same year, Elphinstone, the historian of India, aged 81. John Britton, the Topographer and antiquary, who died 1857, had reached 86: he was cheerful and chirping almost to the end. His brother topographer, Brayley, died 1854, aged 85. John Adey Repton,

the architect and archæologist, died 1860, aged 86; Joseph Hunter, archæologist, 1861, 78.

Kirby, the Entomologist, who died 1850, had reached 91. Professor Jameson, the naturalist, died 1854, aged 81. Brunel, the engineer of the Thames Tunnel, died 1849, aged 81. Captain Manby, who invented apparatus for saving shipwrecked persons, and who died 1854, had reached 89. Sir John Ross, the Arctic navigator, died 1856, at 79. The chemists, Andrew Ure, at 79, and Thenard, at 80, died 1857. Baron Humboldt, who died 1859, reached 92; same year, Sir G. Staunton, the Chinese scholar, at 79. Colonel Leake, the geographer, 1860, at 83; and in the same year Carl Ritter, the geographer, 81; and Bishop Rigaud, astronomer, 85.

In 1858 died an unusually large number of Men of Science and Letters, and Artists, at great ages. Count Radetzsky, at 92; Creuzer, the German antiquary, 87; Thomas Tooke, political economist, 85; three musical composers, Neukomm, 80; J. B. Cramer, 88; and Horsley, 84;Esenbach, botanist, 82; Aimé de Bonpland, 85; Robert Brown, botanist, 84; Bunting, Wesleyan preacher, 80; Mrs. Marcet, educational writer, 89; Edward Pease, "the Father of Railways," 92; Robert Owen, socialist, 87; Richard Taylor, of the Philosophical Magazine, 77.

In 1860 we lost the following eminent Engineers: Vicat (France), aged 75; General Pasley, 80; Eaton Hodgkinson, 72; Sir Howard Douglas, 86. In 1862 there died General Tulloch, at 72; and James Walker, at 81; and in 1860, Jesse Hartley, 80.

Charles Macklin, the oldest English Actor and playwright, who died 1797, had reached the age of 107: for his last twenty years he never took off his clothes, except to change them, or to be rubbed over with warm brandy or gin; he ate, drank, and slept without regard to set times, but according to his inclination.

M. Delphat, the French Musician, who died 1855, had reached 99; and in the same year died Robert Linley, the violoncellist, at 83. John Braham lived far beyond the usual age of singers, namely, to his 82d year: he died February 17, 1856; he first sung in public when ten years old. Ludwig Spohr, the German composer, died 1859, at 80.

Some aged persons have literally fallen asleep in death. Sir Christopher Wren passed his latter years at Hampton Court, and his townhouse in St. James's-street. He caught cold, and this hastened his death. He was in town; he was accustomed to sleep a short time after dinner; and on February 25, 1723, his servant, thinking his master had slept longer than usual, went into his room, and found Wren dead in his chair: he was in his 91st year. James Elmes, who wrote Wren's life, died 1862, aged 80.

Copley, the Painter, died 1815, aged 78; his son, Lord Lyndhurst, in 1863, attained his 91st year: his mother lived to see her son a second time Lord High Chancellor. Stothard, for several months before his decease, though his bodily infirmities prevented his attending to his labours as an artist, would not relinquish his attendance at the meetings and lectures of the Royal Academy and in the library, notwithstanding extreme deafness prevented his hearing what was passing. Mr. Constable, in a letter to a friend, written in 1838, says: "I passed an hour or two with Mr. Stothard on Sunday evening. Poor man! the only elysium he has in this world he finds in his own enchanting works. His daughter does all in her power to make him happy and comfortable." Leslie remarks that Stothard must have possessed great constitutional serenity of mind; he was also, no doubt, much supported by