Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1887 — The Duration of Life. [ARTICLE]

The Duration of Life.

How long may a human being live in perfect possession of his faculties and powers for good or evil? The question is important to all. Conceive a statesman with a despotic power of influencing men’s wills who should last as long as Old Parr! Think of a beauty who might eclipse the maidens of each fresh season, and whose hestemas rosce should outglow their fresh loveliness, as long as Ninon de l’Euclos was a toast, or Marion Delorme, to whom Balzac assigns 180 years! History, social or political, would be altered ; the whole progress of humanity might be advanced for Rons or retarded by one man, who varied from the kindly race of men and lived twice as long as his oldest neighbor. If we may believe a curious old French book, “History of Persons Who Have Lived for many Ages, and Grown Young Again” (Paris, 171(1,), this fancy is not wholly absurd or impossible. All Europe expects great changes from the death of Prince Bismarck, of Von Moltke, of the Emperor. How would all Europo look if they retained their vigor till, say, 1950? Before the deluge such lives would have seemed prematurely cut short at 150. And since the deluge? Hereon our French author enlightens us with learning from Pliny, Cornaro, and Phlegon of Tralja*. Thus Fohi, the founder of the Chinese Empire, reigned 115 years, and so did Apaphns of Thebes Egyptian, but he, surely, was the son of Zeus! Antiochus Epiphanes died at 149! A king of the Ommanians lived to 115, but that was in Arabia Felix. Tactitus gives 175 years to Tuisco, a German prince. Daddon, an* Illyrian noble, lived for 500 years, according to Alexander Cornelius. Anacreon gives Cinyras of Cypruss 100 years, and Arganthonius, a Spaniard, saw 150 summers. According to Bonfinius, Attila was 124 when he died of the consequences of a revel on the night of his marriage—-hifl second marriage. How long had he lamented his first consort? Epimenides was 157 (others say 229) at his regretted decease. At 100 Euphranor gave up taking private pupils. Sophocles perished by an accident at 130. The Apocrypha mentions the circumstance that Mattatliias died by misadventure at 146. The Countess of Arundel (temp. Charles I.) employed a Mrs. Gamp of 123. Thus, even in its natural way, we need never despair of any man attaining say, 130, a pleasant thought in the case of really great men, whose lives are useful to their country. Why, we might have Cromwell with us yet!— Longman's Magazine.