The following is the order of longevity that is exhibited in the various lists, and the average duration of life of the most eminent men, in each pursuit.

CHAPTER VIII.

LONGEVITY OF PHILOSOPHERS, POETS AND ASTRON

OMERS.

FROM these tables it would appear, that those pursuits in which imagination is largely exerted, is unfavourable to longevity. We find the dif ference between the united ages of twenty natural philosophers, and that of the same number of poets, to be no less than three hundred and sixty years; or in other words, the average of life to be about seventy-five in the one, and fifty-seven in the other.

Natural philosophy has, then, the first place in the list of studies conducive to longevity, and it may therefore be inferred, to tranquillity of mind, and bodily well-being; and poetry appears to occupy the last. Why should this be so? Is natural philosophy a less laborious study, or calls for less profound reflection than poetry? Or is it that the latter is rather a passion than a pursuit, which is not confined to the exertion of a particular faculty, but which demands the excrcise of all the faculties, and communicates excitement to

all our feelings? Or is it that the throes of imaginative labour are productive of greater exhaustion than those of all the other faculties?

Poetry may be said to be the natural language of the religion of the heart, whose universal worship extends to every object that is beautiful in nature or bright beyond it. But this religion of the heart is the religion of enthusiasm, whose inordinate devotion borders on idolatry, and whose exaltation, is followed by the prostration of the strength and spirits.

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Poetry," as Madame De Stael has beautifully expressed it, is the apotheosis of sentiment." But this deification of sublime conceptions costs the priest of nature not a little for the transfiguration of simple ideas into splendid imagery; no little wear and tear of mind and body, no small outlay of fervid feelings. No trifling expenditure of vital energy is required for the translation of fine thoughts from the regions of earth to those of heaven, and by the time that worlds of invention have been exhausted and new imagined, the poet has commonly abridged his life to immortalize his name. The old metaphysicians had an odd idea of the mental faculties, and especially of imagination, but which is fully as intelligible as any other psychological theory. They believed, we are told by Hibbert, that the soul was attended by

three ministering principles-common sense, the moderator, whose duty it was to control the sen- ego sorium-memory, the treasurer, whose office it

was to retain the image collected by the senses(?) and (fancy, the handmaid of the mind, whose superbusiness it was to recall the images which me- ego mory retained, and to embody its conceptions in various forms. But as this handmaid was found to be very seldom under the control of the moderator, common sense, they attributed the constant communication between the heart and brain to the agency of the animal spirits which act through the nerves, as couriers between both. At one period conveying delightful intelligence, at other times melancholy tidings, and occasionally altogether misconceiving the object of their embassy. By this means both head heart and were often led astray, and in this confusion of all conceived commands and all concocted spirits-the visions of poets, the dreams of invalids, and the chimeras of superstition, had their origin.-The greatest truths may be approached by the most fanciful vehicles of thought. Be these chimeras engendered where they may, in whatever pursuit the imagination is largely exercised, enthusiasm and sensibility are simultaneously developed, and these are qualities whose growth cannot be allowed to exuberate without becoming unquestion.

ably unfavourable to mental tranquillity, and consequently injurious to health.

Again, we find the cool dispassionate inquiries of moral philosophy, which are directed to the nature of the human mind, and to the knowledge of truths whose tendency is to educate the heart by settling bounds to its debasing passions, and to enlarge the mind by giving a fitting scope to its ennobling faculties, are those pursuits which tend to elevate, and at the same time to invigorate, our thoughts, and have no influence but a happy one on life. We need not be surprised to find the moral historians occupying the second place in the list of long-lived authors.

But, if the list of natural philosophers consisted solely of astronomers, the difference would be considerably greater between their ages and those of the poets, for the longevity of professors of this branch of science is truly remarkable. In the Time's Telescope for 1833, there is a list of all the eminent astronomers, from Thales to those of the last century; and out of eighty-five only twenty-five had died under the age of sixty, five had lived to between ninety and a hundredeighteen between eighty and ninety-twenty-five between seventy and eighty-seventeen between sixty and seventy-ten between fifty and sixtyfive between forty and fifty-and four between