I was a scholar; seven useful springs Did I deflower in quotations Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man; The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt. DELIGHT, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused leaves, Toss'd o'er the dunces, pored on the old print Of titled words; and still my spaniel slept. Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh, Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept. And still I held converse with Zabarell, Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw Of antick Donate; still my spaniel slept. Still on went I; first, _an sit anima?_ Then an it were mortal? O hold, hold; at that They're at brain-buffets, fell by the ears amain Pell-mell together: still my spaniel slept. Then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixt, _Ex traduce_, but whether't had free will Or no, hot Philosophers Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt, I staggered, knew not which was firmer part, But thought, quoted, read, observed and pryed, Stufft noting-books; and still my spaniel slept. At length he waked and yawn'd; and by yon sky, For aught I know he knew as much as I. In a more serious mood than that of this scholar, and in a humbler and holier state of mind than belonged to the Saint, our philosopher used to say, “little indeed does it concern us, in this our mortal stage, to enquire whence the spirit hath come,—but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither is it going!” [Footnote 2: COWPER.] [Footnote 3: MARSTON.] CHAPTER CXXXII. DR. CADOGAN. A REMARKABLE CASE OF HEREDITARY LONGEVITY. REMARKS ON THE ORDINARY TERM OF HUMAN LIFE. Live well, and then how soon so e'er thou die, Thou art of age to claim eternity. RANDOLPH. Dr. Cadogan used to say that the life of man is properly ninety years instead of three-score and ten; thirty to go up, thirty to stand still, and thirty to go down. Who told him so? said Dr. Dove; and who made him better informed upon that point than the Psalmist? Any one who far exceeded the ordinary term, beyond which “our strength is but labour and sorrow,” was supposed by our philosopher, to have contracted an obstinate habit of longevity in some previous stage of existence. Centenaries he thought must have been ravens and tortoises; and Henry Jenkins, like Old Parr, could have been nothing in his preceding state, but a toad in a block of stone or in the heart of a tree. Cardinal D'Armagnac, when on a visitation in the Cevennes, noticed a fine old man sitting upon the threshold of his own door and weeping; and as, like the Poet, he had —not often seen A healthy man, a man full-grown Weep in the public roads, alone,