292 NATURAL HISTORY 
vie in that refpedt with any part of England of the fame dimenftonsj 
where there is no great town or city. 
sect. i. The inhabitants are ufually of middle ftature, healthy, ftrong, 
Health. and adtive, mining and fifhing enabling them to bear watching, 
cold, and wet, much better than where there are no fuch occupa- 
tions : the miners particularly, who efcape accidents, and live tem- 
perately, generally live to a great age ; the alternate daily ufe of 
cold and heat, wet and dry, hardening their bodies equally againft 
the different extremes of weather. 
* 
sect. ii. Our air, it muft be allowed, is very fait, and its influences upon 
Age. tender, fqualid, and negledted habits, proportionably fretting and 
acrimonious ; but to the natives in general it cannot be faid to be 
unhealthy, as many inftances of long-life occurring in Cornwall per- 
haps, as in any part of Britain. Mr. Carew (who lived in the reign 
of Eliz.) obferves *, that eighty and ninety years of age was ordinary 
in every place ; and among other inftances of longevity, names one 
Polzew, who died a little while before his writing, aged one hun- 
dred and thirty years. Mr. Scawen, a gentleman of no lefs veracity, 
in his MS 0 tells us, that in the year 1676, died a woman in the 
parifh of Gwythien (the narroweft, and therefore, as to the air, 
to be reckoned among the falteft parts of this county) one hundred 
and flxty-four years old, of good memory, and healthful at that 
age; and at the Lizherd, where (expofed as this promontory is to 
more fea on the eaft, weft, and fouth, than any part of Britain) 
the air muft be as fait as any where, there are three late inftances 
of people living to a great age : The firft is Mr. Cole, late minifter 
of Landawidnek, (in which parifh the Lizherd is) who by the pa- 
rifh regifter, A. D. 1683, appears to have been above one hundred 
and twenty years old p when he died q . Michael George, late fexton 
of the fame parifh, buried the twentieth of March, ibid, was more 
than a hundred years old ; and being at the Lizherd with the Rev*, 
and worthy Dr. Lyttelton, Dean of Exeter, in the year 1752, we 
went to fee a venerable old man called Collins ; he was then one 
hundred and five years old, of a florid countenance, flood near his 
door leaning on his ftaff, talked fenfibly, was weary of life he faid, 
and advifed us never to wifh for old-age. He died in the year 1754. 
* Page 61. Millet, late Vicar of St. Juft) : “ Thomas Cole, 
0 Pen. Car. Lyttelton, L L. D. Dean of Minifter of and at the Lizard, went one morn on 
£ xo n. foot from Lizard to Penryn, whtch is at leaft 
p “ Was aged above one hundred and twenty thirteen miles, and returned again the fame day 
years by far.” Regift. ibid. on foote to Liz 1 ’, at which time he was at leaft 
1 Of this Mr. Thomas Cole, I find the follow- one hundred and twenty-years, and was met going 
lowing memorandum written in my Hakewells and coming by Mr. Richard Erifey of Erifey, as 
Apology, page 166, figned J. M. (viz. James credible authors report.” 
Some 
