It is our duty as well as privilege to perfect our constitution, and see that it does not wear out too soon, that we are not prematurely called away from our duties. And I bring it as serious charge against modern systems of education, that they tend to degenerate mankind, to impair the constitution and to shorten life. That we should not submit to this, but should all aspire to live a century or longer, if we have a fair opportunity, I seriously maintain, and that my readers may be inspired with a like determination, I take pleasure in quoting examples. In Dr. Cohausen's HERMIPPUS REDIVIVUS republished in 1744, I find the following statements: "It is very remarkable, that not only the sacred writers, but all the ancient Chaldean, Egyptian, and Chinese authors speak of the great ages of such as lived in early times, and this with such confidence that Xenophon, Pliny, and other judicious persons receive their testimony without scruple. But to come down to later times, Attila, King of the Huns, who reigned in the fifth century, lived to 124, and then died of excess, the first night of his second nuptials with one of the most beautiful princesses of that age. Piastus, King of Poland, who from the rank of a peasant was raised to that of a prince, in the year 824, lived to be 120, and governed his subjects with such ability to the very last, that his name is still in the highest veneration amongst his countrymen. Marcus Valerius Corvinus, a Roman Consul, was celebrated as a true patriot and a most excellent person in private life, by the elder Cato, and yet Corvinus was then upwards of a hundred. Hippocrates, the best of physicians lived to an 104, but Asclepiades, a Persian physician, reached 150. Galen lived in undisturbed health to 104; Sophocles, the tragic poet, lived to 130; Democritus, the philosopher, lived to 104; and Euphranor taught his scholars at upward of 100; and yet what are these to Epiminedes of Crete, who, according to Theopompus, an unblemished historian, lived to upwards of 157. I mention these, because, if there be any truth or security in history, we may rely as firmly on the facts recorded of them as on any facts whatever. Pliny gives an account that in the city of Parma, there were two of 130 years of age, three of 120, at a certain taxation, or rather visitation, and in many cities of Italy, people much older, particularly at Ariminium, one Marcus Apponius, who was 150. Vincent Coquelin, a clergyman, died at Paris in 1664, at 112. Lawrence Hutland, lived in the Orkneys to 170. James Sands, an Englishman, towards the latter end of the last century, died at 140, and his wife at 120. In Sweden, it is a common thing to meet with people above 100, and Rudbekius affirms from bills of mortality signed by his brother, who was a bishop, that in the small extent of twelve parishes, there died in the space of thirty-seven years, 232 men, between 100 and 140 years of age, which