his pupils sometimes in the groves of Academus, sometimes on the banks of the Ilyssus, or wherever, indeed, he might chance to be with them. The eminent scholars of those days were likewise in the habit of travelling from country to country to disseminate their stores of knowledge.

I will close the present chapter by citing a few out of the numerous and best authenticated examples of longevity among the philosophers and learned men of antiquity. Homer, it is generally admitted, lived to be very old; so also did the philosopher Pythagoras, and the historian Plutarch. Thucydides, the celebrated Greek historian, and Solon, the famous lawgiver of Athens, reached the age of eighty. Plato died in his eighty-first year. Pittacus and Thales, two of the seven wise men of Greece, lived, the former to be eighty and the latter ninety-six. Xenophon, the Greek historian, and Galen, the distinguished physician, the latter of whom is said to have written no less than three hundred volumes, both attained their ninetieth year. Carneades, a celebrated philosopher of Cyrene in Africa, and founder of a sect called the third or new Academy, reached the same age. It is stated of Carneades that he was so intemperate in his thirst after knowledge, that he did not even give himself time to comb his head or pare his nails. Sophocles, the celebrated tragic poet of Athens, died in his ninety-fifth year; and then, according to one account, not in the course of nature, but by being choked with a grapestone. Other accounts have placed his death a little earlier, and referred it to a different accident, but all agree that he exceeded his ninetieth year. Zeno, the founder of the sect of the Stoics, lived

to be ninety-eight. Hippocrates expired in his ninety-ninth year, and, as we read, free from all disorders of mind or body. Xenophanes, an eminent Greek writer, and the founder of a sect of philosophers in Sicily called Eleatic, arrived to a hundred, and Democritus to the extreme age of a hundred and nine. I am aware that there is a little discrepancy in the statement of different historians in regard to some of the above ages, but there is no disagreement, I believe, in regard to the fact that all these individuals lived to be very old.

CHAPTER III.

EVIL CONSEQUENCES THAT MAY BE APPREHENDED FROM OVERTASKING THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.-RULES PROPER TO BE OBSERVED BY STUDIOUS MEN FOR THE SECURITY OF THEIR HEALTH.-THE ABILITY TO SUSTAIN INTELLECTUAL LABORS VARIES IN DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS, AND CONSEQUENTLY THE PROPORTION OF TIME THAT MAY BE SAFELY DEDICATED TO

STUDY.

THE capabilities of the mind, in like manner with those of the body, must have their limits. The powers of the brain may be impaired by extravagant mental, as those of the muscles by severe corporeal exertions. And so close are the sympathetic ties uniting mind and body, that whatever tends to injure the former, must necessarily endanger the soundness of the latter. Hence, if the intellectual faculties are habitually overtasked, a train of moral and physical infirmities may be induced, imbittering existence and shortening its term.

Persons who addict themselves immoderately to intellectual labors become particularly exposed to affections of the brain, or organ overworked. They are liable to head

aches, and an undefinable host of nervous ailments.

Infiammation, too, and a variety of organic diseases of the brain are not uncommon with them; and apoplexies and palsies are apt to assail them as they advance in life. Whenever there exists a predisposition in the physical constitution to apoplexy, close mental application, and, in a particular manner after the middle term of life, is most hazardous.

Epilepsy is another melancholy disease of the nervous system, which a highly active and exalted state of the mind would seem to favor. Many individuals distinguished for their talents and mental efforts, have been the subjects of this pitiable malady; as Julius Cæsar, Mahomet, and Napoleon; and of learned men, Petrarch, Columna, Francis Rhedi, Rousseau, and Lord Byron, are familiarly cited instances. Still, how much in these examples may be justly ascribed to the abstract labor of intellect, and how much to mental anxiety, or the undue excitement and depression of the moral feelings, cannot be easily determined.

Extreme mental dejection, hypochondriasis, and even insanity, particularly if there be in the constitution any tendency to such conditions, may sometimes result from the cause I am considering. And, in occasional instances, under their intemperate exertion, the energies of the brain have. been consumed, the light of intellect has become extinct, and the wretched victim, in a state of mental imbecility, or even drivelling idiocy, has been doomed to linger out a. miserable existence within the walls of a mad-house.

I have stated what may occur in extreme cases, from abuse of the intellectual powers. Still, I conceive that the

diseases of literary men are far oftener to be imputed to incidental circumstances connected with the neglect or abuse of their physical and animal nature, as their sedentary habits, injudicious diet, inconsiderate indulgence of their different appetites, &c., than to their mere mental labors. But, as being less blameworthy, and more flattering to their pride of understanding, students generally prefer to charge their bodily infirmities upon their toils of intellect. I feel well satisfied that, would studious men, or those whose avocations draw especially on the energies of the brain, but bestow the requisite attention on the regimen of life, they might, as before said, enjoy as good and uniform a share of health as most other classes of the community. But, unhappily for themselves, as they sooner or later discover, the importance of this they do not generally sufficiently understand, or properly regard. Thus we meet not a few in the community, who cultivate and adorn, in the most eminent degree, their intellectual and moral, while they are daily in fringing the laws of their physical, nature. They neglect their needful exercise; they eat and drink as they ought not to eat and drink; they sleep irregularly, and abuse in a thousand other ways the welfare of their bodies. They think only of the mental-the spiritual; the gross vesture of flesh is beneath their consideration; and thus, heedless of all admonition, do they continue in their pernicious course, till their retribution comes in ruined health and premature decay. They are sinners-construe the term as we will-for they offend against the laws of their Maker, as evinced in their living organization, and thereby lessen the