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, his 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 vigor and in humor 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 labor 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 labor 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 neighbors, 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 neighborhood." Whether he never drank any thing else. He said, yes, if any body 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 neighbors 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 labor; 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 extreme 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. 169.-The Coming of Our Saviour. THOMAS BURNET. [THOMAS BURNET, Master of the Charterhouse, was born in 1635. He was educated at the Free School of North Allerton, and at Cambridge. His great work, "Telluris Theoria Sacra," was published in 1680; and in 1684 he translated his original Latin into English, with many additions and alterations. The Sacred Theory of the Earth," was no doubt regarded by its author as a contribution to that science which we now call Geology; but at that time the facts upon which the science rests were so imperfectly known, that the book has now no scientific value. But Burnet brought to his task the imagination of a poet; and some of his descriptions have been rarely surpassed in real sublimity. His English style is remarkably flowing and harmonious, and does not, like Milton's English prose writings, wear the appearance of being formed upon Latin models. The extract which we give is from the last chapter of the Third Book of the "Sacred Theory." Dr. Burnet died in 1715.] Certainly there is nothing in the whole course of nature, or of human affairs, so great and so extraordinary as the two last scenes of them, the Coming of our Saviour, and the Burning of the World. If we could draw in our minds the pictures of these in true and lively colors, we should scarce be able to attend any thing else, or ever divert our imagination from these two objects; for what can more affect us than the greatest glory that ever was visible upon earth, and at the same time the greatest terror;—a God descending at the head of an array of angels, and a burning world under his feet? * * * * As to the face of nature, just before the coming of our Saviour, that may be best collected from the signs of his coming mentioned in the precedent chapter. Those, all meeting together, help to prepare and make ready a theatre fit for an angry God to come down upon. The countenance of the heavens will be dark and gloomy; and a veil drawn over the face of the sun. The earth in a disposition everywhere to break into open flames. The tops of the mountains smoking; the rivers dry; earthquakes in several places; the sea sunk and retired into its deepest channel, and roaring as against some mighty storm. These things will make the day dead and melancholy; but the night scenes will have more of horror in them, when the blazing stars appear like so many furies with their lighted torches, threatening to set all on fire. For I do not doubt but the comets will bear a part in this tragedy, and have something extraordinary in them at that time, either as to number, or bigness, or nearness to the earth. Besides, the air will be full of flaming meteors, of unusual forins and magnitudes; balls of fire rolling in the sky, and pointed lightnings darted against the earth, mixed with claps of thunder and unusual noises from the clouds. The moon and the stars will be confused and irregular, both in their light and motions; as if the whole frame of the heayens was out of order, and all the laws of nature were broken or expired. When all things are in this languishing or dying posture, and the inhabitants of the earth under the fears of their last end, the heavens will open on a sudden, and the glory of God will appear. A glory surpassing the sun in its greatest radiancy; which though we cannot describe, we may suppose it will bear some resem blance or proportion with those representations that are made in Scripture of God upon his throne. This wonder in the heavens, whatsoever its form may be, will presently attract the eyes of all the Christian world. Nothing can more affect than an object so unusual and so illustrious, and that probably brings along with it their last destiny, and will put a period to all human affairs. As it is not possible for us to express or conceive the dread and majesty of his appearance, so neither can we, on the other hand, express the passions and consternations of the people that behold it. These things exceed the measures of human affairs, and of human thoughts; we have neither words nor comparisons to make them known by. The greatest pomp and magnificence of the Emperors of the East, in their armies, in their triumphs, in their inaugurations, is but the sport and entertainment of children, if compared with this solemnity. When God condescends to an external glory, with a visible train and equipage, when, from all the provinces of his vast and boundless empire, he summons his nobles, as I may so say-the several orders of angels and archangels to attend his person, though we cannot tell the form or manner of his appearance, we know there is nothing in our experience, or in the whole history of this world, that can be a just representation of the least part of it. No armies so numerous as the host of heaven; and, instead of the wild noises of the rabble which makes a great part of our worldly state, this blessed company will breathe their hallelujahs into the open air, and repeated acclamations of salvation to God, which sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb. * * ** Imagine all Nature now standing in a silent expectation to receive its last doom; the tutelary and destroying angels to have their instructions; every thing to be ready for the fatal hour; and then, after a little silence, all the host of heaven to raise their voice, and sing aloud: Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered; as smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. And upon this, as upon a signal given, all the sublunary world breaks into flames, and all the treasures of fire are opened in heaven and in earth. Thus the conflagration begins. If one should now go about to represent the world on fire, with all the confusions that necessarily must be in nature and in mankind upon that occasion, it would seem to most men a romantic scene. Yet we are sure there must be such a scene. The heavens will pass away with a noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and all the works of the earth will be burnt up; and these things cannot come to pass without the greatest disorders imaginable, both in the minds of man and in external nature, and the saddest spectacles that eye can behold. We think it a great matter to see a single person burnt alive here are millions shrieking in the flames at once. It is frightful to us to look upon a great city in flames, and to see the distractions and misery of the people; here is an universal fire through all the cities of the earth, and an universal massacre of their inhabitants. Whatsoever the prophets foretold of the desolations of Judea, Jerusalem, or Babylon, in the highest strains, is more than literally accomplished in this last and general calamity; and those only that are spectators of it can make its history. The disorders in nature and the inanimate world will be no less, nor less strange and unaccountable, than those in mankind. Every element, and every region, so far as the bounds of this fire extend, will be in a tumult and a fury, and the whole habitable world running into confusion. A world is sooner destroyed than made; and nature relapses hastily into that chaos state out of which she came by slow and leisurely motions: as an army advances into the field by just and regular marches; but, when it is broken and routed, it flies with precipitation, and one cannot describe its posture. Fire is a barbarous enemy; it gives no mercy; there is nothing but fury, and rage, and ruin, and destruction wheresoever it prevails, as storm, or hurricane, though it be but the force of air, makes a strange havoc where it comes; but devouring flames or exhalations set on fire, have still a far greater violence, and carry more terror along with them. Thunder and earthquakes are the sons of fire; and we know nothing in nature more impetuous or more irresistibly destructive than these two. And, accordingly, in this last war of the elements, we may be sure they will bear their parts, and do great execution in the several regions of the world. Earthquakes and subterraneous eruptions will tear the |