After a sweet and most profound repose, such as I have not experienced from the time I had left my father’s house first, I awoke, and knowing that nature after a great sea sickness, for I was sick the whole voyage, found an inclination to an egg or two, so went down and ordered the landlord to get me some for breakfast, who told me that he had none but turkey eggs, and those he was sure I would not eat; I asked him why? for I should like them to choose, if they were new-laid; he said they were laid that morning, but that it was monstrous to eat them in Leghorn, as they were devoted to another use.—What to be set, and hatched said I—ay to be sure, he replied, staring at me, as if I was a fool or a madman, why, continued he, they are devoted to our clergy: Sir, an English sailor like you, once called for eggs, and I had none but turkeyeggs, as is the present case, but he would have them, yes, da—n his eyes, and he had them, but Sir, as he was breaking the shell, out popt a little young cardinal, with a red hat, who thus accosted him.—Why you English son of a bitch, how dare you break my house over my head, though my mother was but an oyster, I’d have you to know that my father was a cardinal; he swore heartily to the truth of it, and finding him a facetious lyar, laughed as heartily as he swore, but nevertheless eat three of the cardinal’s mothers with a great deal of satisfaction; I then took a walk to see the city, in high-dress, and as I was walking through one of the streets, saw a great crowd of people going into a tavern, whom I also accompanied. The landlord seemed to be a man about fifty years of age, of a florid healthy countenance, plump and sleek; who thus accosted, Gentlemen, I am perhaps the greatest curiosity in Europe, how old do you take me to be? all agreed not above fifty, I shall, gentlemen, on the 19th of next month, be in the hundred and fifteenth year of my age, and never drank any thing but water in my life, nor ever knew any woman but my wife, never was bled, never took physic, never knew one sick minute, I thank Providence; now gentlemen follow me, and I’ll shew you a greater prodigy than myself. We followed, and the first thing that presented itself to our sight, was a cradle, in which lay an old man, who seemed to have lived in the days of good queen Bess, so wrinkled, so emaciated was his face; his beard extended to his navel, his eyes sunk in his head, and I could compare the skin to nothing but shrivell’d parchment, well, said the landlord, in that cradle lies my youngest son, he is not 72 till the 14th of March, hardships in war, and travel by sea and land, together with a most dissolute life spent with women, and in drunkenness, have brought him to this untimely old age; he has been a fool these twenty years, which saved his life to this time, because it disabled him from pursuing his former courses, a sad example of immorality and lewdness, as I am a standing monument of the contrary.