LIFE AND DEATH. 347 



20. 1 suppose there is scarce a village with us in England, 

 if it be any whit populous, but it affords some man or woman 

 of fourscore years of age ; nay, a few years since, there was 

 in the county of Hereford a May-game, or morrice-dance, 

 consisting of eight men, whose age computed together 

 made up eight hundred years ; insomuch that what some 

 of them wanted of a hundred, others exceeded as much. 



21. In the hospital of Bethlehem, corruptly called Bed 

 lam, in the suburbs of London, there are found from time to 

 time many mad persons that live to a great age. 



22. The ages of nymphs, fawns, and satyrs, whom they 

 make to be indeed mortal, but yet exceedingly long lived 

 (a thing which ancient superstition, and the late credulity 

 of some have admitted), we account but for fables and 

 dreams, especially being that which hath neither consent 

 with philosophy, nor with divinity. And as touching the 

 history of long life in man by individuals, or next unto in 

 dividuals, thus much. Now we will pass on to observations 

 by certain heads. 



23. The running on of ages, and succession of genera 

 tions, seem to have no whit abated from the length of life. 

 For we see, that from the time of Moses unto these our days, 

 the term of man s life hath stood about fourscore years of 

 age; neither hath it declined (as a man would have thought) 

 by little and little. No doubt there are times in every 

 country wherein men are longer or shorter lived. Longer, 

 for the most part, when the times are barbarous, and men 

 fare less deliciously, and are more given to bodily exercises. 

 Shorter, when the times are more civil, and men abandon 

 themselves to luxury and ease. But these things pass on 

 by their turns, the succession of generations alters it not. 

 The same, no doubt, is in other living creatures, for neither 

 oxen, nor horses, nor sheep, nor any the like, are abridged 

 of their wonted ages at this day. And, therefore, the great 

 abridger of age was the flood ; and perhaps some such 

 notable accidents (as particular inundations, long droughts, 

 earthquakes, or the like) may do the same again. And the 

 like reason is in the dimension and stature of bodies, for 

 neither are they lessened by succession of generations; 

 howsoever Virgil (following the vulgar opinion) divined that 

 after ages would bring forth lesser bodies than the then 

 present. Whereupon, speaking of ploughing up the ^Ema- 

 thian and ^Emmensian fields, he saith, Grandiaque effossis 

 mirabitur ossa sepulchris, That after ages shall admire 

 the great bones digged up in ancient sepulchres. For 

 whereas it is manifested, that there were heretofore men of 



