CHAPTER XIV. 



OF MEN AND WOEMEN. 



[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births, &c. will suffice to shew the 

 nature of this Chapter. It must be admitted that its contents are unimportant except as matters of 

 curious speculation, and as connected with the several localities referred to. J. B.] 



A PROVERB : 



" Salisbury Plain 

 Never without a thief or twain. 



As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken before in the Prolegomena, 



As to longevity, good aire and water doe conduce to it : but the inhabitants are also to tread on 

 dry earth ; not nitrous or vitf iolate, that hurts the nerves. South and North Wiltshire are wett and 

 dampish soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and unwholsome dampe. 

 Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the inhabitants doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my 

 worthy friend George Johnson of Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say that he did 

 observe in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and Denbigh, that men lived there as commonly to an 

 hundred yeares as with us to eighty. Mr. Meredith Lloyd hath seen at Dolkelly, a great parish in 

 Merionithshire, an hundred or more of poore people at eighty yeares of age at church in a morning, 

 who came thither bare-foot and bare-legged a good way. 



In the chancell of Winterborn Basset lies interred Mr. Ambrose Brown, who died 166 ,aged 103 

 yeares. Old goodwife Dew of Broad Chalke died about 1649, aged 103. She told me she was, I 

 thinke, sixteen yeares old when King Edward the sixth was in this countrie, and that he lost 

 Ins courtiers, or his courtiers him, a hunting, and found him again in Falston-lane. In the parish 

 of Stanton St. Quintin are but twenty-three houses, and when Mr. Byron was inducted, 167 , 

 here were eight persons of 80 yeares of age. Mr. Thorn. Lyte of Easton-Piers, my mother's grand- 

 father, died 1626, aged 96 ; and about 1674 died there old William Kington, a tenant of mine, about 

 90 yeares of age. A poore woman of Chippenham died about 1684, aged 108 yeares. 



Part of an Epitaph at Colinbourne-Kinston in Wiltshire, communicated to the Philosophicall 

 Conventus at the Musseum at Oxford, by Mr. Arthur Charlett, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford: 



" Pray for the soule of Constantino Darrel, Esq. who died Anno Dni. 1400, and his 



wife, who died Ao. Dni. 1495." See it I doe believe the dates in the inscription are in numericall 

 letters. [In this case the former date was probably left unfinished, when the husband placed the 

 inscription to his wife, and after his death it was neglected to be filled up, as in many other instances. 

 The numerals would be in black letter. J. B.] 



In the chancel at Milsham is an inscription of Isaac Selfe, a wealthy cloathier of that place, who 

 died in the 92nd yeare of his age, leaving behind him a numerous offspring ; viz. eighty and three in 

 number. 



