Great. Gartius Aretine, great-grandfather to Petrarch, arrived at the age of an hundred and four years; he had ever enjoyed the benefit of good health: besides, at the last he felt rather a decay of his strength than any sickness or malady, which is the true resolution by old age. Amongst the Venetians there have been found not a few long-livers, and those of the more eminent sort: Franciscus Donatus, Duke; Thomas Contarenus, Procurator of Saint Mark; Franciscus Molinus, Procurator also of Saint Mark; and others. But most memorable is that of Cornarus, the Venetian, who, being in his youth of a sickly body, began first to eat and drink by measure to a certain weight, thereby to recover his health; this cure turned, by use, into a diet, that diet to an extraordinary long life, even of a hundred years and better, without any decay in his senses, and with a constant enjoying of his health. In our age, William Postel, a Frenchman, lived to an hundred and well nigh twenty years; the top of his beard on the upper lip being black, and not grey at all, a man crazed in his brain, and of a fancy not altogether sound, a great traveller, mathematician, and somewhat stained with heresy.

I suppose there is scarce a village with us in England, if it be any whit populous, but it affords some man or woman of fourscore years of age. Nay, a few years since, there was, in the county of Hereford, a May-game or morris-dance, consisting of eight men, whose ages computed together made up eight hundred years; insomuch that what some of them wanted of an hundred others exceeded as much.

In the Hospital of Bethleem, corruptly called Bedlam, in the suburbs of London, there are found, from time to time, many mad persons that live to a great age.

Not only the goodness or pureness of the air, but also the equality of the air is material to long life. Intermixture of hills and dales is pleasant to the sight, but suspected for long life. A plain moderately dry, but yet not over-barren or sandy, nor altogether without trees and shade, is very convenient for length of life.

Inequality of air (as was even now said) in the place of our dwelling is naught; but change of air by travelling, after one be used unto it, is good; and therefore great travellers have been long-lived. Also those that have lived perpetually in a little cottage, in the same place, have been long-livers; for air accustomed, consumeth less; but air changed, nourisheth and repaireth more.

Fair in face, or skin, or hair, are shorter livers; black, or red, or freckled, longer. Also, too fresh a colour in youth doth less promise long life than paleness. A hard skin is a sign of long life rather than a soft; but we understand not this of a rugged skin, such as they call the goose-skin, which is as it were spongy, but of that which is hard and close. A forehead with deep furrows and wrinkles is a better sign than a smooth and plain forehead.

The hairs of the head hard, and like bristles, do betoken longer life than those that are soft and delicate. Curled hairs betoken the same thing if they be hard withal, but the contrary if they be soft and shining. The like, if the curling be rather

thick than in large bunches.

Early or late balduess is an indifferent thing: seeing many which have been bald betimes have lived long. Also, early grey hairs (howsoever they may seem forerunners of old age approaching) are no sure signs; for many that have grown grey betimes have lived to great years. Nay, hasty grey hairs, without baldness, is a token of long life; contrarily, if they be accompanied with baldness.

Tallness of stature (if it be not immoderate) with convenient making, and not too slender, especially if the body be active withal, is a sign of long life. Also, on the contrary, men of low stature live long, if they be not too active and stirring.

In the proportion of the body, they which are short to the waist, with long legs, are longer lived than they which are long to the waist and have short legs; also, they which are large in the nether parts, and straight in the upper (the making of their body rising, as it were, into a sharp figure), are longer lived than they that have broad shoulders and are slender downwards.

Leanness, where the affections are settled, calm, and peaceable, also a more fat habit of body, joined with choler, and a disposition stirring and peremptory, signify long life; but corpulency in youth foreshows short life; in age it is a thing more indifferent.

To be long and slow in growing is a sign of long life; if to a greater stature, the greater sign: if to a lesser stature, yet a sign, though. Contrarily, to grow quickly to a great stature is an evil sign; if to a small stature, the less evil.

Firm flesh, a raw-boned body, and veins lying higher than the flesh, betoken long life; the contrary to these, short life. A head somewhat lesser than to the proportion of the

body; a moderate neck, not long, nor slender, nor fat, nor too short; wide nostrils, whatsoever the form of the nose be; a large mouth; an ear grisly, not fleshy; teeth strong and contiguous, small or thin set, foretoken long-life; and much more, if some new teeth put forth in our elder years.

Certainly this is, without all question, that diet well ordered bears the greatest part in the prolongation of life: neither did I ever meet an extreme long-lived man, but being asked of his course he observed something peculiar, some one thing, some another. I remember an old man above an hundred years of age, who was produced as a witness touching an ancient prescription; when he had finished his testimony, the judge familiarly asked him how he came to live so long: he answered, beside expectation, and not without the laughter of the hearers, "By eating before I was hungry, and drinking before I was dry."

I make some question touching the frequent letting of blood, whether it conduceth to long life or no; and I am rather in the opinion that it doth, if it be turned into a habit, and other things be well disposed; for it letteth out the old juice of the body, and bringeth in new.

I suppose, also, that some emaciating diseases well cured do profit to long life: for they yield new juice, the old being consumed; and (as he saith) to recover a sickness is to renew youth. Therefore, it were good to make some artificial diseases, which is done by strict and emaciating diets.

The spirits are the master-workmen of all effects in the body. This is manifest by consent and by infinite instances.

If any man could procure that a young man's spirit could be conveyed into an old man's body, it is not unlikely but this great wheel of the spirits might turn about the lesser wheel of the parts, and so the course of nature become retrograde.

In every consumption, whether it be by fire or by age, the more the spirit of the body or the heat preyeth upon the moisture the lesser is the duration of that thing. This occurs everywhere, and is manifest.

The spirits are to be put into such a temperament and degree of activity, that they should not (as he saith) drink or guzzle the juices of the body, but sip them only.

The Turks find opium, even in a reasonable good quantity, harmless and comfortable; insomuch that they take it before their battle to excite courage. But to us, unless it be in a very small quantity, and with good correctives, it is mortal.

The Turks use a kind of herb which they call Caphe, which they dry and powder, and then drink it in warm water, which, they say, doth not a little sharpen them both in their courage and in their wits; notwithstanding, if it be taken in a large quantity it affects and disturbs the mind, whereby it is manifest that it is of the same nature with opiates.

There is a root much renowned in all the eastern parts, which they call Betel, which the Indians and others use to carry in their mouths, and to champ it, and by that champing they are wonderfully enabled both to endure labours and to overcome sicknesses, and to the act of carnal copulation; it seems to be a kind of stupefactive, because it exceedingly blacks the teeth.

Tobacco, in our age, is immoderately grown into use, and it affects men with a secret kind of delight, insomuch that they who have once inured themselves unto it can hardly afterwards leave it; and, no doubt, it hath power to lighten the body, and to shake off weariness. Now the virtue of it is commonly thought to be because it opens the passages and voids humours; but it may more rightly be referred to the condensation of the spirits, for it is a kind of henbane, and manifestly troubles the head as opiates do.

It is affirmed that gunpowder, which consisteth principally of nitre, being taken in drink doth conduce to valour, and that it is used oftentimes by mariners and soldiers before they begin their battles, as the Turks do opium.

As the condensation of the spirits by subordinates to opium is, in some sort, performed by odours, so also that which is by subordinates to nitre; therefore the smell of new and pure earth, taken either by following the plough, or by digging, or by weeding, excellently refresheth the spirits. Also the leaves of trees in woods or hedges, falling towards the middle of autumn, yield a good refreshing to the spirits: but none so good as strawberry-leaves dying. Likewise the smell of violets, or wallflowers, or bean-flowers, or sweet-briar, or honey-suckles, taken as they grow, in passing by them only, is of the same nature.

Nay, and we know a certain great lord who lived long, that had every morning, immediately after sleep, a clod of fresh earth, laid in a fair napkin, under his nose, that he might take the smell thereof.

These procure quiet sleep : violets, lettuce, especially boiled, syrup of dried roses, saffron, balm, apples, at our going to bed, a sop of bread in malmsey, especially where musk-roses have been first infused; therefore, it would not be amiss to make

some pill or a small draught of those things, and to use it familiarly. Quinces and wardens roasted do induce sound sleep but above all things, in youth, and for those that have sufficient strong stomachs, it will be best to take a good draught of clear cold water when they go to bed.

:

Hope is the most beneficial of all the affections, and doth much to the prolongation of life, if it be not too often frustrated, but entertaineth the fancy with an expectation of good. Therefore, they which fix and propound to themselves some end as the mark and scope of their life, and continually and by degrees go forward in the same, are, for the most part, longlived; insomuch, that when they are come to the top of their hope and can go no higher therein, they commonly droop, and live not long after; so that hope is a leaf-ivy, which may be beaten out to a great extension, like gold.

Admiration and light contemplation are very powerful to the prolonging of life, for they hold the spirits in such things as delight them, and suffer them not to tumultuate or to carry themselves unquietly and waywardly. And, therefore, all the contemplators of natural things, which had so many and so eminent objects to admire (as Democritus, Plato, Parmenides, Apollonius) were long-lived; also rhetoricians, which tasted but lightly of things, and studied rather exornation of speech than profundity of matters, were also long-lived: as Gorgias, Protagoras, Isocrates, Seneca; and certainly, as old men are, for the most part, talkative, so talkative men do often grow very old, for it shows a light contemplation, and such as doth not much strain the spirits or vex them; but subtile and acute and eager inquisition shortens life, for it tireth the spirit and wasteth it.

Ficinus saith not unwisely, that old men, for the comforting of their spirits, ought often to remember and ruminate upon the acts of their childhood and youth. Certainly, such a remembrance is a kind of peculiar recreation to every old man ; and therefore it is a delight to men to enjoy the society of them which have been brought up together with them, and to visit the places of their education. Vespasian did attribute so much to this matter, that when he was emperor he would, by no means, be persuaded to leave his father's house, though but mean, lest he should lose the wonted object of his eyes, and the memory of his childhood; and besides, he would drink in a wooden cup tipped with silver, which was his grandmother's, upon festival days.