LONGEVITY, the same as length of life. From the different longevities of men in the beginning of the world, after the Flood, and in subsequent ages, Mr Derham deduces an argument for the interposition of a divine Providence. Immediately after the creation, when the world was to be peopled by one man and one woman, the ordinary age was nine hundred and upwards. Immediately after the Deluge, when there were only three persons to stock the world, their age was cut shorter, and none of those patriarchs excepting Shem arrived at five hundred. In the second century we find none who reached two hundred and forty, and in the third none but Terah who arrived at two hundred years; the world, at least a part of it, by that time being so well peopled that they had built cities, and cantoned themselves out into distinct nations. By degrees, as the number of people increased, their longevity diminished, until at length it came down to seventy or eighty years. That the common duration of man's life has been the same in all ages since the above period, is plain both from sacred and profane history. Plato lived until he was eighty-one, and was accounted an old man; and the instances of longevity produced by Pliny (lib. vii. c. 48) as very extraordinary may most of them be matched in modern histories. In the following tables are collected into one point of view the most memorable instances of long-lived persons of whose respective ages we have any authentic records.

Names of the Persons. Age. Places of Abode. When they died.
Thomas Parre 152 Shropshire Died November 16, 1635.
Phil. Trans. No. 44.
Henry Jenkins 169 Yorkshire Died December 8, 1670.
Phil. Trans. No. 221.
Robert Montgomery 126 Ditto Died in ..... 1670.
James Sands 140 Staffordshire Ditto, Fuller's Worthies,
His Wife 120 Ditto p. 47.
Countess of Desmond 140 Ireland Raleigh's Hist. p. 166.
..... Eccleston 143 Ditto Died ..... 1691.
J. Sagar 112 Lancashire ..... 1668.
Simon Sack 141 Trionia ..... May 30, 1764.
Colonel Thomas Winslow 146 Ireland ..... August 26, 1766.
Francis Consist 150 Yorkshire ..... January ... 1768.
Christ. J. Drakenberg 146 Norway ..... June 24, 1770.
Francis Bons 121 France ..... February 6, 1769.
James Bowels 152 Killingworth ..... August 15, 1656.
John Tice 125 Worcestershire ..... March 1774.
John Mount 136 Scotland ..... February 27, 1766.
A. Goldsmith 140 France ..... June ... 1776.
Mary Yates 128 Shropshire ..... ... 1776.
John Bales 126 Northampton ..... April 5, 1776.
William Ellis 130 Liverpool ..... August 16, 1780.
Janet Taylor 108 Fintray, Scotland ..... October 10, 1780.
Susannah Hilliar 100 Piddington, Northamptonshire ..... February 19, 1781.
Ann Cockbolt 105 Stoke-Bruerne, ibid. ..... April 5, 1775.
James Hayley 112 Middlewich, Cheshire ..... March 17, 1781.

Although longevity prevails more in certain districts of it in almost every quarter of the globe. This appears than in others, yet it is by no means confined to any particular nation or climate; nor are there wanting instances here subjoined.

Names of the Persons. Age. Places of Abode. Where recorded.
Hippocrates, physician 104 Island of Cos Lynche on Health, chap. iii.
Democritus, philosopher 109 Abdera Bacon's History, 1095.
Galen, physician 140 Pergamus Voss. Inst. lib. iii.
Albuna, Marc 150 Ethiopia Hakewell's Ap. lib. i.
Dumitru Raduly 140 Haromszeck, Transylvania Died January 18, 1782. General Gazetteer, April 18.
Titus Fullonius 150 Bononia Fulgosus, lib. viii.
Abraham Paiba 142 Charlestown, South Carolina General Gazetteer.
L. Tertulla 137 Ariminum Fulgosus, lib. viii.
Lewis Cornaro 100 Venice Bacon's History of Life, p. 134.
Robert Blackeney, Esq. 114 Armagh, Ireland General Gazetteer.
Margaret Scott 125 Dalkeith, Scotland Inscription on her tomb there.
W. Gulstone 140 Ireland Fuller's Worthies.
J. Bright 105 Ludlow Lynche on Health.
William Postell 120 France Bacon's History, p. 134.
Jane Reeves 103 Essex St James's Chron. June 14, 1781.
W. Paulet, marquis of Winchester 106 Hampshire Baker's Chron. p. 502.
John Wilson 116 Suffolk Gen. Gaz. October 29, 1782.
Patrick Wian 115 Lesbury, Northumberland Plemp. Fundam. Med. § 4, c. 8.
M. Laurence 140 Orcades Buchanan's Hist. of Scotland.
Evan Williams 145 Caermarthen work-house General Gazetteer, October 12, 1782.
John Jacobs 121 Mount Jura All the public prints, Jan. 1790.
Matthew Tait 123 Auchinleck, Ayrshire Died February 19, 1792. Edin. Even. Cour. March 8, 1792.

We have seen a list of a hundred and four persons, one of whom died under a hundred and twenty years of age, and one of whom, it is said, lived to the prodigious age of a hundred and eighty. Of these long-lived individuals, forty-one belonged to England, sixteen to Scotland, and twenty-four to Ireland.

For further information on this subject, the reader is referred to the article MORTALITY, LAW OF.