and vigorous appetite for them. Care and judgment therefore should be employed to break off customs before they become tiresome; and to curb the desire of new things for a season till it becomes more strong and quick. Moreover, the course of life should, if possible, be so ordered that it may have many and various restorations; and the spirits may not grow torpid by perpetual intercourse with the same things. For though Seneca' said well, "A fool is always beginning to live," yet this folly, like many others, contributes to longevity.

94. It is to be observed with regard to the spirits (although the contrary course be commonly followed), that when men perceive their spirits to be in a good, calm, and healthy state (which may be known by a quiet and cheerful disposition of mind), they should cherish and not change them; but if the spirits are in a disturbed and untoward state (as will be shown by sadness, heaviness, and other indisposition of mind), they should at once subdue and alter them. Now the spirits are continued in the same state by restraint of the affections, temperance of diet, abstinence from sexual intercourse, refraining from labour, and moderate rest. They are overpowered and altered by the contrary; namely, by violent affections, profuse feasting, immoderate indulgence of the sexual appetite, arduous labours, intense study, and business. It is however the common practice of men, when they are the most merry and best disposed, to apply themselves most to feasting, love, labour, contentions, and business. But if a man should wish for long life, he ought (though it may seem strange) to adopt the contrary system; for good spirits should be cherished and continued, spirits ill disposed should be discharged and altered.

95. Ficinus says well, "That old men, to comfort their spirits, should frequently recall and ruminate on the acts of their childhood and youth."2 Such remembrance is no doubt the peculiar recreation of all old men; and hence it is that they delight in the society of their old schoolfellows, and love to visit the places of their education. Vespasian indeed had this feeling so strong, that when he was emperor he could no way bring himself to change his father's house, humble though it was, lest he should lose sight of familiar objects and the recollection of his boyhood. Nay, he used on holidays to drink

1 Sen. Ep. 13.

2 Ficinus, De Vit. Prod. 8.

out of a wooden cup, tipped with silver, which had belonged to his grandmother.'

96. The thing above all others most pleasing to the spirits is a continual advance to the better. Youth and manhood should therefore be so ordered as to leave new comforts for old age, whereof the principal is moderate rest. And therefore old men in honourable places who do not retire to a life of leisure, offer violence to themselves. A remarkable instance of this is found in the case of Cassiodorus, who had so much authority with the Gothic kings of Italy that he appeared to be the soul and life of their affairs; yet afterwards, when nearly eighty years of age, he retired into a monastery, where he lived to be a hundred. Herein, however, two cautions are required; one, that they do not wait till the body is entirely worn out and diseased, for in such bodies all change, even for the better, accelerates death; the other, that they do not give themselves up to mere inertness, but have something to entertain the minds and thoughts in a quiet way; for which the best kind of amusement is reading, and next building and planting.

97. Lastly, the same action, endeavour, and labour, which if undertaken cheerfully and with good will refreshes the spirits, if it be attended with aversion and dislike preys upon and prostrates them. It will therefore promote longevity if a man either so arrange his life that it shall be free, and pass as he likes, or else obtain such command over his mind that, whatever necessity fortune may impose, it may rather lead than drag him.

98. Nor must it be forgotten, as bearing on the government of the affections, that especial care is to be paid to the mouth of the stomach, chiefly to prevent it from being too much relaxed. For this part has more power over the affections, especially the daily ones, than either the heart or the brain; excepting only such as are caused by powerful vapours, as in drunkenness and melancholy.

99. So much then for the operation upon the spirits, that they may retain their youth and renew their freshness; which I have paid the more attention to, because physicians and other authors are mostly silent on these operations; but principally because the operation upon the spirits for the renewal of them

Sueton. in Vesp. 2.

is the easiest and most compendious way to the prolongation of life. And it is most compendious for two reasons; the one, because the spirits act compendiously on the body; the other, because vapours and affections act compendiously on the spirits; so that these go to their end as it were in a straight line, other things more circuitously.

II.

THE OPERATION UPON THE EXCLUSION OF THE AIR.

The History.

1. Exclusion of the external air tends in two ways to prolong life. First, because most of all things, next to the internal spirit, the external air (although it is as life to the human spirit, and contributes very much to health) preys upon the juices of the body and hastens its desiccation; whence the exclusion of the air conduces to longevity.

2. The second effect of the exclusion of the air is much more deep and subtle; namely, that the body being closed up, and not perspiring, detains the spirit within, and turns it upon the harder parts of the body, which are thereby rendered soft and tender.

3. The reason of this process is explained in the desiccation of inanimate bodies. And it may be taken for an infallible axiom, that the emission of the spirit dries bodies, but the detention thereof melts and softens them. And it may be further assumed that all heat properly attenuates and moistens, but contracts and dries only by accident.

4. A life in caves and holes, where the rays of the sun do not enter, may perhaps tend to longevity; for the air of itself, unexcited by heat, has not much power to prey upon the body. Certainly, on looking back, it appears from many remains and monuments that the size and stature of men were anciently much greater than they have been since, as in Sicily and some other places; and such men generally lived in caves. Now there is some affinity between length of age and largeness of limbs. The cave of Epimenides likewise passes current among the fables. And I suspect that the life of the columnar anchorites was something like the life in caves, for there neither the rays of the sun penetrated, nor did the air admit of great changes

or inequalities. It is certain that both the Simeons, Daniel Saba, and other stylites, were very long-lived. Modern anchorites likewise, shut up within walls or pillars, are often found long-lived.

5. Next to the life in caves is the life on mountains. For as the heat of the sun does not penetrate into caves, so on the tops of mountains, where there is no reflection, it has less power. But this must be understood of mountains where the air is clear and pure; that is, where from the dryness of the vallies mists and vapours do not ascend; as in the mountains that surround Barbary, where, even at the present day, men often live 150 years, as I have observed before.

6. Now air of this kind in caves and mountains has of its own nature little or no predatory power. But air such as ours is, rendered predatory by the heat of the sun, should as much as possible be excluded from the body.

7. The air is kept off and excluded in two ways; first, by closing the pores; secondly, by filling them up.

8. Closing of the pores is assisted by coldness of the air itself, by nakedness, which hardens the skin, by washing in cold water, and by astringents applied to the skin, as mastich, myrrh, and myrtle.

9. But this operation will be much better served by baths, seldom used however (especially in summer), consisting of such astringent mineral waters as may be safely applied; such as chalybeate and vitriol waters; for these powerfully contract the skin.

10. As for filling up the pores, paints and such like thick unctuous substances, and (which may be most conveniently used) oil and fat things, no less preserve the substance of the body than oil colours and varnish preserve wood.

11. The ancient Britons painted themselves with woad, and were extremely long-lived. The Picts likewise had the same custom, and are even supposed by some to have derived their name from it.

12. At this day the natives of Brazil and Virginia use to paint themselves, and are said, especially the former, to be very long-lived; insomuch that five years ago the French Jesuits met with some of them who remembered the building of Fernamburg, which happened 120 years before, they being then grown up.

13. Johannes de Temporibus, who is said to have reached the age of three hundred, on being asked how he had preserved himself, is reported to have answered, " By oil without, and honey within."

14. The Irish, especially the wild Irish, are, even to this day, very long-lived. In truth, they say that within these few years the Countess of Desmond lived to 140, and shed her teeth three times. Now the Irish have a custom of standing naked before the fire, and rubbing and as it were pickling themselves with old salt butter.

15. These same Irish are accustomed to wear shirts and linen rubbed with saffron, which, though it was introduced to prevent putrefaction, yet I consider tends to lengthen life. For saffron is the best thing I know for the skin, and to comfort the flesh, seeing it is a wonderful astringent, and has besides an oiliness and subtle heat without any acrimony. Indeed I remember an Englishman who; on crossing the Channel with a bag of saffron, to avoid paying duty, carried it for concealment around his stomach, and although before he had always been very sea-sick, he was this time quite well and felt no

nausea.

16. Hippocrates' advises to wear clean clothes next to the skin in winter, but foul and smeared with oil in summer. The reason whereof appears to be, that in summer the spirits exhale most, and therefore the pores of the skin should be stopped.

17. I judge therefore that to anoint the skin externally with oil, either of olives or sweet almonds, contributes above everything to longevity. The anointing should take place every morning on rising; the oil should be mixed with a little bay salt or saffron. It should be done lightly with wool or a soft sponge, so as not to drop upon the body, but only to touch and moisten the skin.

18. It is certain that all liquids, even those of an oily nature, if in large quantities, draw something out of the body; but, on the other hand, in small quantities they are absorbed by the body. The anointing therefore, as I said, should be light, or the shirt itself should be smeared with oil.

19. It may perhaps be objected that this anointing with

1 Hippocr. de Salubri Diæta.