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LONDONDERRY LONGEVITY. 



LONDON DKUIIY, H.WKRT STEWAUT, marquis of, 

 the second sun of llie first marquis, was born in the 

 north of Ireland, June 18, 1769, and was educated at 

 Armagh, after which he became a commoner of St 

 John's college, Cambridge. On leaving the univer- 

 sity, he made the tour of Europe, and, on his return, 

 was chosen a member of the Irish parliament. He 

 joined the opposition, in the first place, and declared 

 himself an advocate for parliamentary reform ; but, 

 on obtaining a seat in the British parliament, he took 

 his station on the ministerial benches. In 1797, hav- 

 ing then become lord Castlereagh, he returned to the 

 Irish parliament, and, the same year, became keeper 

 of the privy seal for that kingdom, and was soon after 

 appointed one of the lords of the treasury. The next 

 year, he was nominated secretary to the lord- 

 lieutennnt, and, by his strenuous exertions, and abili- 

 ties in the art of removing opposition, the union with 

 Ireland was greatly facilitated. In the united parlia- 

 ment, he sat as member for the county of Down, and, 

 in 1802, was made president of the board of control. 

 In 1805, he was appointed secretary of war and the 

 colonies ; but, on the death of Mr Pitt, he retired, 

 until the dissolution of the brief administration of 

 1806 restored him to the same situation in 1807; and 

 he held his office until the ill-fated expedition to 

 Walcheren, and his duel with his colleague, Mr 

 Canning, produced his resignation. In 1812, he 

 succeeded the marquis of Wellesley as foreign secre- 

 tary, and the following year proceeded to the conti- 

 nent, to assist the coalesced powers in negotiating a 

 general peace. His services after the capture of 

 Napoleon, and in the general pacification and 

 arrangements which have been usually designated 

 by the phrase the settlement of Europe, form a part 

 of history. It is sufficient to notice here, that he 

 received the public thanks of parliament, and was 

 honoured with the order of the garter. On the death 

 of his father, in April, 1821, he succeeded him in 

 the Irish marquisate of Londonderry, but still retained 

 his seat in the British house of commons, where he 

 acted as leader. After the arduous session of 1822, 

 in which his labour was unremitting, his mind was 

 observed to be much shattered ; but, unhappily, 

 although his physician was apprized of it, he was 

 suffered to leave London for his seat at North Cray, 

 in Kent, where, in August, 1822, he terminated his 

 life by inflicting a wound in his neck, with a pen- 

 knife, of which he died almost instantly. This states- 

 man has been censured for a severe, rigid, and per- 

 secuting domestic government, and for an undue 

 countenance of despotic encroachment and arrange- 

 ment as regards the social progress of Europe. His 

 party and supporters, in answer to these strictures, 

 for the most part, plead political necessity and ex- 

 pediency, while no small portion of them defend his 

 views on the ground of principle. He was an active 

 man of business, and a ready, although not an elegant 

 orator. His remains were interred, in Westminster 

 abbey, with great ceremony, but not without an 

 exhibition of popular ill-will. (See Mem. of the late 

 Marquis of Londonderry, London, 1829.) He was 

 succeeded in his title by his half-brother, lieutenant- 

 colonel lord Stewart, who was for some time ambas- 

 sador to Prussia, and afterwards to Vienna. His 

 lordship is author of a Narrative of the Peninsular 

 War (second edition, London, 1828), and a Narrative 

 of the Wnr in Germany and France, in 1813 and 

 1814, and is a member of the British house of 

 peers. 



LONGCHAMP; a promenade of the Parisian 

 fashionables, on the right bank of the Seine, about 

 four miles below the capital. It was once a convent, 

 founded by Isabella, sister of St Louis, where she 

 spent her last years, and terminated her life, Feb. 



22, 1269. The convent was then called the Abbaye 

 de I' hum Hit,' tic \otre Dame, and the credulity of the 

 times ascribed to the bones of Isabella, who was 

 buried there, such miraculous powers, that Leo X. 

 canonized her in 1521. 116 years after, the bones 

 of Isabella, with the permission of Urban VIII., 

 were collected in the presence of the archbishop of 

 Paris, and, like other relics, set in gold and silver. 

 Two other princesses of France also died there 

 Blanche, daughter of Philip the Long, who likewise 

 ended his life at this place, Jan. 3, 1321, and Jeanne 

 of Navarre. Previous to the revolution, Longchamp 

 was a place of resort to the Parisian beau monde and 

 to the English. It is still related, that on those days 

 when it was a part of bon ton to repair thither 

 (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Passion week), 

 some of the English carried their luxury so far, as to 

 make the shoes of their horses and the tires of their 

 coach wheels of silver, on these promenades. In the 

 beginning of the revolution, when the abbey of 

 Longchamp, like the monasteries of France, in 



feneral, was abolished, and the buildings partially 

 emolished, the splendour of this place was de- 

 stroyed ; but under the consulate, when wealth again 

 dared to display itself openly, Longchamp recovered 

 its ancient brilliancy, and again offered the Parisian 

 ladies an opportunity of exhibiting their charms 

 Tallien and Recamier were then the stars in this fir- 

 mament of fashion and beauty. Under the imperial 

 government, the splendour of Longchamp was some- 

 what diminished, owing partly to Napoleon's con- 

 tempt for frivolous exhibitions, partly to the continued 

 wars, which withdrew great numbers of rich young 

 men from the capital. After the restoration, the 

 promenade of Longchamp was almost wholly ne- 

 glected. But more recently, it has again recovered 

 some of its former splendour. 



LONGEVITY. The extreme limit of human life, 

 and the means of attaining it, have been a subject of 

 general interest, both in ancient and modern times, 

 and the physiologist and political economist are alike 

 attracted by the inquiry. It is for the student of 

 biblical antiquities to decide in what sense we are to 

 understand the word year in the scriptural accounts 

 of the antediluvians ; whether it signifies a revolu- 

 tion of the sun or of the moon, or whether their ex- 

 treme longevity is only the creation of tradition. In 

 the sense which we now give to the word year, the 

 accounts would make the constitution of men at the 

 period referred to, very different from what it is at 

 present, or has been, at any period from which obser- 

 vations on the duration of human life have been 

 transmitted to us. The results of all these observa- 

 tions, in regard to the length of life in given circum- 

 stances, do not essentially differ. Pliny affords some 

 valuable statistical information, if accurate, regard- 

 ing the period at which he lived, obtained from 

 an official, and, apparently, authentic source the 

 census, directed by the emperor Vespasian, in the 

 year 76 of the Christian era. From this we learn 

 that, at the time of the computation, there were, in 

 the part of Italy comprised between the Apennines 

 and the Po, 124 individuals aged 100 years and up- 

 wards, viz. 54 of 100 years, 57 of 110, 2 of 125, 4 of 

 130, 4 of 135 to 137, and 3 of 140. At Parma, a man 

 was living aged 120, and 2 aged 130 ; at Faenza, 11 

 female aged 132 ; anoj at a small town near Placeiu 

 tia, called Velleiacium, lived 6 persons aged 110 

 years each, and 4 of 120. These estimates, however, 

 do not accord with those of Ulpian, who seems to 

 have taken especial care to become acquainted with 

 the facts of the case. His researches prove that the 

 expectation of lite in Rome, at that time, was much 

 less than it now is in London, or in any of our cities. 

 Hufeland, indeed, in his Macrobiotics, asserts that the 



