Leyden, where the waters are not so easily renewed; and for this reason, I suppose, it is, that Leyden is found to be the neatest and cleanliest kept of all their towns.

The same moisture of air makes all metals apt to rust and wood to mould; which forces them, by continual pains of rubbing and scouring, to seek a prevention, or cure: this makes the brightness and cleanness that seems affected in their houses, and is called natural to them, by people who think no further. So the deepness of their soil, and wetness of seasons, which would render it unpassable, forces them, not only to exactness of paving in their streets, but to the expense of so long causeways between many of their towns, and in their highways: as, indeed, most national customs are the effect of some unseen or unobserved natural causes or necessities.-Observations upon the United Pro

vinces.

5. Length of Life in Britain.

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 aliye, who was brought out of Derbyshire to the court in King Charles I'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, perhaps 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 IV'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 know

ledge 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 ended 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 morrice-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 morrice-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 him what he used to drink; he said, O sir, we have the best water in our parish that is in all the neighbourhood: 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 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.— Of Health and Long Life.

XVII.

ISAAC BARROW.

1630-1677.

ISAAC BARROW, the son of a linen-draper in London, but descended of an ancient Suffolk family, was born in 1630. His education, which was commenced at Charterhouse, where he was remarkable only for fighting and idleness, was continued with better success at Felstead. His progress there was so great that his master appointed him at the age of thirteen as a little tutor to Viscount Fairfax, of Emly in Ireland. Whilst in Ireland, in 1643, he was admitted a Pensioner of Peterhouse, in Cambridge, of which College his uncle, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was then Fellow. His uncle's ejection from the College for writing against the Covenant led to his withdrawing from it, and he entered, when he came to Cambridge in 1645, as a Pensioner of Trinity. The losses incurred by his father through adherence to the royal cause brought him into pecuniary difficulty, through which he was helped by the liberality of Dr. Hammond. In 1647 he was elected a Scholar of the House. By his good conduct he preserved the good-will and esteem of his superiors in spite of the obnoxiousness of the party to which he belonged, and though he had never taken the Covenant, in 1649 he was elected Fellow.

Perceiving that the times were unfavourable to persons of royalist opinions, he resolved to devote himself to medicine, and began the studies preliminary to that profession; but he soon returned to divinity, to which, with mathematics and astronomy, he devoted himself for the rest of his life. He travelled for some years in France, Italy, and Turkey, selling his books to defray