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like that, gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day-a day of crises and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not wheresomehow, I knew not how-by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams, (where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement,) had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and, yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightie: cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet had pro. claimed. Then came the sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempests and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed-and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then-everlasting farewells! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated-everlasting farewells; and again, and yet again reverberated-everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud-"I will sleep no more!"

Health and Long Life.

SIR W. TEMPI.E.

[SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, an eminent statesman, was born in 1628. He was employed during the reign of Charles II. in several important missions, and by

his energy and judgment concluded the famous Triple Alliance of 1668 between England, Holland, and Sweden. His politics were too liberal, and his dispo. sition too honest, for those days. He gradually retired into private life; and at his house in Sheen devoted himself to literature and gardening. He died in 1699.]

For the honour of our climate, it has been observed by ancient authors, that the Britons were longer-lived than any other nation to them known. And in modern times there have been more and greater examples of this kind than in any other countries of Europe. The story of old Parr is too late to be forgotten by many now alive, who was brought out of Derbyshire to the court in King Charles the First's time, and lived to a hundred and fifty-three years old; and might have, as was thought, gone further, if the change of country air and diet for that of the town had not carried him off untimely at that very age. The late Robert, Earl of Leicester, who was a person of great learning and observation, as well as of truth, told me several stories very extraordinary upon this subject; one of a Countess of Desmond, married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and who lived far in King James's reign, and was counted to have died some years above a hundred and forty; at which age she came from Bristol to London to beg some relief at court, having long been very poor by the ruin of that Irish family into which she was married.

Another he told me was of a beggar at a bookseller's shop, where he was some weeks after the death of Prince Henry; and, observing those that passed by, he was saying to his company, that never such a mourning had been seen in England: this beggar said, "No, never since the death of Prince Arthur." My Lord Leicester, surprised, asked what she meant, and whether she remembered it; she said, "Very well ;" and upon his more curious inquiry told him that her name was Rainsford, of a good family in Oxfordshire; that when she was about twenty years old, upon the falseness of a lover, she fell distracted; how long she had been so, nor what passed in that time, she knew not; that when she was thought well enough to go abroad, she was fain to beg

for her living; that she was some time at this trade before she recovered any memory of what she had been, or where bred; that when this memory returned, she went down into her country, but hardly found the memory of any of her friends she had left there; and so returned to a parish in Southwark, where she had some small allowance among other poor, and had been for many years; and once a week walked into the city, and took what alms were given her. My Lord Leicester told me he sent to inquire at the parish, and found their account agree with the woman's: upon which he ordered her to call at his house once a week, which she did for some time; after which he heard no more of her. This story raised some discourse upon a remark of some in the company, that mad people are apt to live long. They alleged examples of their own knowledge; but the result was that if it were true, it must proceed from the natural vigour of their tempers, which disposed them to passions so violent as end in frenzies : and from the great abstinence and hardships of diet they are forced upon by the methods of their cure, and severity of those who had them in care; no other drink but water being allowed them, and very little meat.

The last story I shall mention from that noble person, upon this subject, was of a morris-dance in Herefordshire; whereof he said he had a pamphlet still in his library, written by a very ingenious gentleman of that county; and which gave an account how such a year of King James's reign, there went about the country a set of morris-dancers composed of ten men who danced a Maid Marian, and a tabor and pipe; and how these twelve one with another made up twelve hundred years. 'Tis not so much that so many in one small county should live to that age, as that they should be in vigour and in humour to travel and to dance.

I have in my life met with two of above a hundred and twelve ; whereof the woman had passed her life in service, and the man in common labour till he grew old and fell upon the parish. But I met with one who had gone a much greater length, which made me more curious in my inquiries. 'Twas an old man who begged usually at a lonely inn upon the road in Staffordshire, who told

me he was a hundred and twenty-four years old; that he had been a soldier in the Cales voyage under the Earl of Essex, of which he gave me a sensible account. That after his return he fell to labour in his own parish, which was about a mile from the place where I met him. That he continued to work till a hundred and twelve, when he broke one of his ribs by a fall from a cart, and being thereby disabled he fell to beg. This agreeing with what the master of the house told me was reported and believed by all his neighbours, I asked him what his usual food was; he said, milk, bread, and cheese, and flesh when it was given him. I asked what he used to drink; he said, "Oh, sir, we have the best water in our parish that is in all the neighbourhood. Whether he never drank anything else? He said, yes, if anybody gave it him, but not otherwise; and the host told me he had got many a pound in his house, but never spent one penny. I asked if he had any neighbours as old as he, and he told me but one, who had been his fellow-soldier at Cales, and was three years older; but he had been most of his time in a good service, and had something to live on now he was old.

I have heard, and very credibly, of many in my life above a hundred years old, brought as witnesses upon trials of titles, and bounds of land; but have observed most of them to have been of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, or Yorkshire, and none above the rank of common farmers. The oldest I ever knew any persons of quality, or indeed any gentleman, either at home or abroad, was fourscore and twelve. This, added to all the former recites or observations, either of long-lived races or persons in any age or country, makes it easy to conclude that health and long life are usually blessings of the poor, not of the rich; and the fruits of temperance, rather than of luxury and excess. And indeed if a rich man does not in many things live like a poor, he will certainly be the worse for his riches. If he does not use exercise, which is but voluntary labour; if he does not restrain appetite by choice as the other does by necessity; if he does not practise sometimes, even abstinence and fasting, which is the last extremc of want and poverty; if his cares and his troubles increase with

his riches, or his passions with his pleasures; he will certainly impair in health, whilst he improves his fortunes, and lose more than he gains by the bargain; since health is the best of all human possessions, and without which the rest are not relished or not kindly enjoyed.

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EVENING has formed the subject of one of Collins's most finished poems :

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song

May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear,

Like thy own modest springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed.

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat,

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing.

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