overned his
subjects with such ability to the very last, that his name is still in
the highest veneration amongst his countrymen. Marcus Valerius
Corvinus, a Roman Consul, was celebrated as a true patriot and a most
excellent person in private life, by the elder Cato, and yet Corvinus
was then upwards of a hundred. Hippocrates, the best of physicians
lived to an 104, but Asclepiades, a Persian physician, reached 150.
Galen lived in undisturbed health to 104; Sophocles, the tragic poet,
lived to 130; Democritus, the philosopher, lived to 104; and Euphranor
taught his scholars at upward of 100; and yet what are these to
Epiminedes of Crete, who, according to Theopompus, an unblemished
historian, lived to upwards of 157. I mention these, because, if there
be any truth or security in history, we may rely as firmly on the
facts recorded of them as on any facts whatever. Pliny gives an
account that in the city of Parma, there were two of 130 years of age,
three of 120, at a certain taxation, or rather visitation, and in many
cities of Italy, people much older, particularly at Ariminium, one
Marcus Apponius, who was 150. Vincent Coquelin, a clergyman, died at
Paris in 1664, at 112. Lawrence Hutland, lived in the Orkneys to 170.
James Sands, an Englishman, towards the latter end of the last
century, died at 140, and his wife at 120. In Sweden, it is a common
thing to meet with people above 100, and Rudbekius affirms from bills
of mortality signed by his brother, who was a bishop, that in the
small extent of twelve parishes, there died in the space of
thirty-seven years, 232 men, between 100 and 140 years of age, which
is the more credible, since in the diet assembled by the late Queen of
Sweden, in 1713, the oldest and best speaker among the deputies from
the order of Peasants was considerably above 100. These accounts,
however, are far short of what might be produced from Africa and North
America, that I confine myself to such accounts as are truly
authentic." All of these instances the doctor sustains by reference to
his authorities.

To the foregoing he adds the examples of teachers and persons who
associate with the young, to which he ascribes great value in
promoting longevity. Thus, "Gorgias, the master of Isocrates, and many
other eminent persons, lived to be 108. His scholar, Isocrates, in the
94th year of his age published a book, and survived the publication
four years, in all which time he betrayed not the least fai