Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/591

 . 14, 1863.] grow brave again, or may depart whithersoever they will.”

“You are a cheerful counsellor,” observed Monmouth; “more so than your father, whom I saw in Lyme, and whom I greatly respect. I wish I had so brave a man with me here. But I am thankful to have his son.”

recent circumstances have fixed attention on the great prominence of Old Age as a feature of our time:—Old Age, not coddled in cotton-wool, and kept warm by the fireside, but active, intelligent, efficient, and agreeable;—not only venerable through wealth of years, but admirable in its own character. Physiologists and statisticians tell us that the longevity of our own nation improves,—a marked increase in the length of life having been established within this century; and certainly, what we see in the society of men of mark in our own time quite disposes us to believe this.

The wonder is why there is any such change in the case of public men,—statesmen, churchmen, philosophers, authors, and professional men. It is easy to understand why the labouring classes, and people of small means, live longer than formerly. Sanitary improvements, and increased knowledge of the human frame and how to manage it, may account for such a diminution as there is of disease, whether in active operation or in the form of infirmity which breaks down the system prematurely. But what makes the difference to people who have been brought up in comfort, and have lived in good dwellings, and fed on good and well-cooked food, and been exempt from damp, and bad smells, and scarcity of air and water? If our upper classes have in all ages been blessed with an abundance of the means of living, why should one generation of them live longer than another?

Perhaps, if the entire generation in two different centuries were compared, the greater number of each would be found to be still very much alike. It may be that the difference is seen mainly in the longevity of a small number of conspicuous persons. In the humbler classes the improvement is spread more evenly over the whole population. The cases of workhouse wonders,—mummies of either sex who are celebrated for having been on the rates for seventy or eighty years,—are probably about as many as were known to our fathers; or the difference may be that such cases are now occasionally found in better homes than the workhouse: but they are always very few; and the world is sure to hear of such as there are. Such cases, generally speaking, show how life may be carried on with the least vital action. The brain works just enough to keep the machine going, and by no means to wear it out. Once secured against hunger, toil, and care, they have no further wear and tear; and so there is nothing to prevent their living on till the machinery stops of itself. Their comrades who have more brain, more heart, more responsibilities, and a keener sense of them, are subject to more bodily risks and more mental anxiety. As knowledge, management of affairs, and wages improve, the higher orders of poor people suffer less, run fewer risks, and live somewhat longer; but the longevity is so diffused that we might hardly observe it except by the proof being brought before our eyes.

In the case of the easy middle ranks the longer life of our days is easily accounted for. The virtual abolition of small-pox alone is a great matter. A greater is that intemperance in the form of eating and drinking has descended to a lower class. It is in the small shopkeeping and artisan class now that we see the heavy feeding and the passionate pursuit of dainties for the table which was once no disgrace in mansions and palaces; and, when a man has to be excused for something done or said because he was drunk, the instant conclusion is that he is not a gentleman. Without looking further, therefore, society agrees that the gentry may well be longer lived than their grandparents,—by at least the difference of having no small-pox and very little gout to deal with. Fevers, too, seem to be gravitating so as to suggest the hope that they, like drunkenness, will go out at the lower end of society. All this seems clear and satisfactory to many persons; but the question remains—why it is that we see so many more old men than formerly in the most arduous positions of public life?

It is a remarkable spectacle, no doubt. Taking the Statesmen first;—how many of those whom the world has lost were active in their functions to the last! Metternich was thrust aside because his work was a failure, and not because he was himself incapable of action. Nesselrode was Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Chancellor of the Empire to successive Czars till he died last year at ninety-two, clear-headed and full of interest for Russia as he had ever been. Last month, a man at least as life-like at about the same age departed from among us, leaving a stronger impression on our minds of everything about him than of his extreme age. Lord Lyndhurst had some infirmities at ninety-one; but nobody to the last associated any idea of decrepitude with him,—much less of senile weakness. Lord Lansdowne was eight years younger at his death; and we saw in him more of the familiar attributes of failing executive powers: but he, too, had a clear and calm mind, and a bright interest in the life around him, at an age when the traditional octogenarian should have been lingering in second childhood. That Lord Campbell should have been hard at work, head and hand, till death fell upon him in his chair, is hardly surprising to those who had long studied his constitution and his course. To those who knew his fibre, physical, mental, and moral, the question was whether he ever would die, and why: and if he had lived over a hundred, doing all the work of his particular judgeship or any other, the final surprise would have been,—not that he had lasted so long, but that he should ever come to a stop. Mr. Ellice had much less to do, to think about and to feel, in regard to public affairs, than any of these men; but still he was a public man,—once active, and not perhaps the less busy after he had taken to repressing other