In the muscular and unincumbered frame of Mr. Elwes, there was every thing that promised extreme length of life; and he lived to above seventy years of age without any natural disorder attacking him: but, as Lord Bacon has well observed, "the minds of some men are a lamp that is continually burning;" and such was the mind of Mr. Elwes. Removed from those occasional public avocations which had once engaged his attention, _money_ was now his only thought. He rose upon _money_; upon _money_ he lay down to rest; and as his capacity sunk away from him by degrees, he dwindled from the real cares of his property into the puerile concealment of a few guineas. This little store he would carefully wrap up in various papers, and depositing them in different corners, would amuse himself with running from one to the other, to see whether they were all safe. Then forgetting, perhaps, where he had concealed some of them, he would become as seriously afflicted as a man might be who had lost all his property. Nor was the _day_ alone thus spent: he would frequently rise in the middle of the _night_, and be heard walking about different parts of the house, looking after what he had thus hidden and forgotten. It was at this period, and at seventy-six years old, or upwards, that Mr. Elwes began to feel, for the first time, some bodily infirmities from age. He now experienced occasional attacks from the gout: on which, with his usual perseverance, and with all his accustomed antipathy to _apothecaries_, and their _bills_, he would set out to walk as far and as fast as he could. While he was engaged in this painful mode of cure, he frequently lost himself in the streets, the names of which he no longer remembered, and was as frequently brought home by some errand-boy, or stranger, of whom he had inquired his way. On these occasions he would bow and thank them, at the door, with great civility; but never indulged them with a sight of the inside of the house. During the winter of 1789, the last winter Mr. Elwes was fated to see, his memory visibly weakened every day; and, from his unceasing wish to save money, he now began to apprehend he should die in want of it. Mr. Gibson had been appointed his builder in the room of Mr. Adam; and one day, when this gentleman waited upon him, he said, with apparent concern, "Sir, pray consider in what a wretched state I am; you see in what a good house I am living; and here are five guineas, which is all I have at present; and how I shall go on with such a sum of money, puzzles me to death--I dare say you thought I was rich; now you see how it is!"