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, p. 47. | | His Wife | 120 | Ditto | Raleigh's Hist. p. 166. | | Countess of Desmond | 140 | Ireland | Died 1691. | | Ecleston | 143 | Ditto | | | J. Sagar | 112 | Lancashire | | | 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 | | | 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 than in others, yet it is by no means confined to any particular nation or climate; nor are there wanting instances of it in almost every quarter of the globe. This appears from the preceding table, as well as from that which is 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 | Abdela | Bacon's History, 1095. | | Galen, physician | 140 | Pergamus | Voss. Inst. lib. iii. | | Albuma, Marc | 150 | Ethiopia | Hakewell's Ap. lib. i. | | Dumitur Raduly | 140 | Haromszeck, Transylvania | Died January 18, 1782. General Gazetteer, April 18. | | Titus Fullonius | 150 | Bononia | Fulgosus, lib. viii. | | Abraham Paibon | 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.