her.

The good woman no sooner read his proposal than she accepted it, adding,
withal, that she could wish her entertainment was better; but if he would
accept of it as it was, she would do her best to make everything easy,
and that he should be welcome upon his own terms, to stay with her as
long as he pleased.

This affair being so happily settled to his full satisfaction, he returns
to Padstow to fetch the things he had left behind him, and the next day
came back to St. Helen's, where, according to his own proposal, he
continued to the day of his death, which happened upon the 29th of May,
1718, about the same hour in which he was born.

Having thus given a short detail of the several periods of his life,
extracted chiefly from the papers which he left behind him, I come in the
next place to make a few observations how he managed himself and spent
his time toward the latter part of it.

His constant practice, both winter and summer, was to rise and set with
the sun; and if the weather would permit, he never failed to walk in some
unfrequented place, for three hours, both morning and evening, and there
it is supposed he composed the following meditations. The chief part of
his sustenance was milk, with a little bread boiled in it, of which in
the morning, after his walk, he would eat the quantity of a pint, and
sometimes more. Dinners he never eat any; and at night he would only
have a pretty large piece of bread, and drink a draught of good spring
water; and after this method he lived during the whole time he was at St.
Helen's. It is observed of him that he never slept out of a bed, nor
never lay awake in one; which I take to be an argument, not only of a
strong and healthful constitution, but of a mind composed and calm, and
entirely free from the ordinary disturbances of human life. He never
gave the least signs of complaint or dissatisfaction at anything, unless
it was when he heard the tinners swear, or saw them drunk; and then, too,
he would get out of the way as soon as he had let them see, by some
significant signs, how scandalous and ridiculous they made themselves;
and against the next time he met them, would be sure to have a paper
ready written, wherein he would represent the folly of drunkenness, and
the dangerous consequences that generally attended it.

Idleness was his utter aversion, and if at any time he had finished the
business of the day, and was grown weary of reading and writing, in wh