Not the least pleasing feature of the meeting in question consisted in the number of men in advanced years who were enjoying its incidents,--fine specimens of youth carried along into mature life,--that most admirable and noble condition of human nature, and looking as if they were never going to be old. They showed how true it is that spirit is youth, and that the want of spirit is age,--that life measures not by birthdays, but by capacity for noble enjoyments, and that he who would be a Man, must never forget to be a Boy. It avails nothing for a man to live sixty or seventy years, unless he carry along with him the freshness and cheerfulness of his youth, and nothing so powerfully contributes to keeping the heart green, as simple and true love of country pleasures and country productions. This is the true old age, and that which we should set ourselves to attain. Our first duty is to live as long as we can; and our chief wisdom, after the fear of God, is to cultivate those tastes which make youth of spirit last till birthdays come no more. The actual longevity both of naturalists in general, and of many of the Lancashire men in particular, is a fact of no mean significance. Crowther was seventy-nine when he died; John Mellor, eighty-two; Elias Hall, the geologist, eighty-nine. Timothy Harrop, of Middleton, with whose work, as a bird and animal stuffer, the British Association were so well pleased when they visited Manchester in 1842; and Josiah Nuttall, of Heywood, were also very old men. Whether this longevity is to be attributed to the quiet and temperate habits which the study of natural history almost invariably induces, or to the continual out-door exercise inseparable from genuine pursuit of it; or to the quickening of the intelligence and affections, and the invigoration of the bodily health, which, by a beautiful law of nature, always so gratefully ensues;--there is evidently a something about natural history--other circumstances being equal--wonderfully promotive of length of days. Men never step into the presence of nature with affection and reverence, but they come back blessed and strengthened with a reward.