CHAPTER VI.

INFLUENCE OF STUDIOUS HABITS ON THE

DURATION OF LIFE.

It is a question whether different kinds of literary pursuits do not produce different diseases, or at least, different modifications of disease; but there is very little doubt, that a vast difference in the duration of life is to be observed in the various learned professions, and the several directions given to mental application, whether by the cultivation of poetry, the study of the law, the labours of miscellaneous composition, or the abstraction of philosophical inquiries. "Every class of genius," says D'Israeli, "has distinct habits; all poets resemble one another, as all painters, and all mathematicians. There is a conformity in the cast of their minds, and the quality of each is distinct from the other: the very faculty which fits them for one particular pursuit is just the reverse required for the other."

An excellent old author, who wrote on the diseases of particular avocations about two cen

turies ago, has spoken in the following terms of the diseases of literary men. "Above all the retainers to learning, the bad influence of study and fatigue falls heaviest upon the writers of books for the public, who seek to immortalize their names; by writers, I mean authors of merit, for there are many, from an insatiable itch for notoriety, who patch up indigested medleys, and make abortive rather than mature productions, like those poets who will throw you off a hundred verses, Stantes in pede uno,' as Horace has it. It is your wise and grave authors, day and night, who work for posterity, who wear themselves out with labour. But they are not so much injured by study who only covet to know what others knew before them, and reckon it the best way to make use of other people's madness, as Pliny says of those who do not take the trouble to build new houses, but rather buy and live in those that are built by other people. Many of these professors of learning are subject to diseases peculiar to their respective callings, as your eminent jurists, preachers, and philophers, who spend their lives in public schools."

For the purpose of ascertaining the influence of different studies on the longevity of authors, the tables which follow have been constructed, in which the names and ages of the most cele

It

brated authors in the various departments of literature and science are set down, each list containing twenty names of those individuals who have devoted their lives to a particular pursuit, and excelled in it. No other attention has been given to the selection than that which eminence suggested, without any regard to the ages of those who presented themselves to notice. The object was to give a fair view of the subject, whether it told for or against the opinions that have been expressed in the preceding pages. must, however, be taken into account, that as we have only given the names of the most celebrated authors, and in the last table those of arts in their different departments, a greater longevity in each pursuit might be inferred from the aggregate of the ages than properly may belong to the general range of life in each pursuit. For example, in moral or natural philosophy, a long life of labour is necessary to enable posterity to judge of the merits of an author; and these are ascertained not only by the value, but also by the amount of his compositions. It is by a series of researches, and re-casts of opinion, that profound truths are arrived at, and by numerous publications that such truths are forced on the public attention. For this a long life is necessary, and it certainly appears from the list that is subjoined,

that the vigour of a great intellect is favourable to longevity in every literary pursuit, wherein imagination is seldom called on.

There is another point to be taken into consideration, that the early years of genius are not so often remarkable for precocity, as is commonly supposed, and where it is otherwise, it would seem that the earlier the mental faculties are developed, the sooner the bodily powers begin to fail. It is still the old proverb with such prodigies," So wise, so young, they say do ne'er live long." Moore says, the five most remarkable instances of early authorship, are those of Pope, Congreve, Churchill, Chatterton, and Byron." The first of these died in his fiftysixth year, the second in his fifty-eighth, the third in his thirty-fourth," the sleepless boy" committed suicide in his eighteenth, and Byron died in his thirty-seventh year.

Mozart, at the age of three years, began to display astonishing abilities for music, and in the two following years, composed some trifling pieces, which his father carefully preserved, and, like all prodigies, his career was a short one---he died at thirty-six. Tasso from infancy exhibited such quickness of understanding, that at the age of five he was sent to a Jesuit academy, and two years afterwards recited verses and

orations of his own composition; he died at fiftyone. Dermody was employed by his father, who was a schoolmaster, as an assistant in teaching the Latin and Greek languages in his ninth year; he died at twenty-seven. The American prodigy, Lucretia Davidson, was another melancholy instance of precocious genius, and early death. Keats wrote several pieces before he was fifteen, and only reached his twenty-fifth year. The ardour of Dante's temperament, we are told, was manifested in his childhood. The lady he celebrated in his poems under the name of Beatrice, he fell in love with at the age of ten, and his enthusiasm terminated with life at fifty-six. Schiller, at the age of fourteen, was the author of an epic poem; he died at forty-six. Cowley published a collection of his juvenile poems, called "Poetical Blossoms" at sixteen, and died at sixtynine.

But it would be useless to enumerate instances in proof of the assertion, that the earlier the developement of the mental faculties, the more speedy the decay of the bodily powers.*

*One of the most remarkable instances, however, of precocity of talent and early application, upon record, is the late celebrated Archeologist Visconti, who died in 1818, at the age of sixty-seven. When only eighteen months' old he knew his alphabet; at the age of two could distinguish and name the VOL. I.

6