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ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
grown and married, when he was a child. She has 
now the perfect use of all her senses. I saw her 
mow part of her orchard, which she does every year. 
Within these few months her house was thatched, 
and she served the thatcher, carrying him straw, and 
every other necessary up the ladder to the top of the 
house. She read to me a small print without spec- 
tacles, which she has never yet used, but says she 
believes she must come to them soon. Her memory 
is perfectly good, for she mentioned to me several 
particulars which happened to her the year after the 
Revolution, (1688) when she was big enough to milk 
a cow. Her son lives with her, and she does all the 
business of the house ; she rises early, drinks chiefly 
cider-washings,^ hath rarely tasted tea, never took 
tobacco in any shape, or drams ; has had three 
^ Dr. Nash attributes great virtues to cider, which by his account one might 
imagine to be almost the elixir of life, as in his supplement, after mentioning several 
centenarians, he observes " the diet of all these was cider with a toast." He also 
gives an extract from the parish register of Delwyn, Herefordshire, where mention 
is made of " Richard Tutley, a tanner, a very laborious man, who when very ill, 
was recovered by drinking cider, and alive in 1673, aged above 100 years."— 
" The widow Hill, of Eardsland, was 111 years old in the year 1675 ; she drank 
cider before she rose in the morning ; for breakfast she had a piece of bread and 
butter, or cheese, and cider ; absented herself but two years from church, and the 
last time she was there brought the vicar her offering, being twopence in an apple." 
After such instances of the life-prolonging efficacy of cider, no wonder the worthy 
vicar of Delwyn should rapturously exclaim 
" All the Gallic wines are not so boon 
As hearty cider ; — that strong son of wood 
In fullest tides refines and purges blood. 
Becomes a known Bethesda, whence arise 
Full certain cures for spittal maladies. 
Death slowly shall the citadel invade, 
A draught of this bedulls his scythe and spade," 
