In regard to conformation, very tall and spare subjects are seldom long-lived; and the same observation applies to the stunted and diminutive. A well-set body, with a broad and deep chest, a neck not over-long, with well-formed and firm muscles, generally hold forth a fair prospect of old age.

Children born before the regular period of gestation, those who have been weaned too early, or given to nurses whose milk was not of a proper quality, are seldom strong. Too rapid a growth will also shorten the space of existence.

Our avocations and pursuits materially affect health and the consequent duration of life; and the nature of the excitement man is submitted to produces a remarkable effect. It has been calculated in France that one hundred and fifty-two academicians, whose aggregate years were ten thousand five hundred and eleven, averaged sixty-nine years and two months. The following calculation of Madden will further illustrate this curious subject.

AGES OF GREAT MEN.
Natural Philosophers.
Bacon 78 Euler 76
Buffon 81 Franklin 85
Copernicus 70 Galileo 78
Cuvier 64 Halley 86
Davy 51 Herschel 84
Kepler 60 Lalande 75
Laplace 77 Lewenhoeck 91
Leibnitz 70 Linnæus 72
Newton 84 Tycho Brahe 75
Whiston 95 Wollaston 62
Poets.
Ariosto 59 Burns 38
Byron 37 Camoens 55
Collins 56 Cowley 49
Cowper 69 Dante 56
Dryden 70 Goldsmith 44
Gray 57 Metastasio 84
Milton 66 Petrarch 68
Pope 56 Shenstone 50
Spenser 46 Tasso 52
Thomson 48 Young 84
Moral Philosophers.
Bacon 65 Bayle 59
Berkeley 79 Condorcet 51
Condillac 65 Descartes 54
Diderot 71 Ferguson 92
Fitche 52 Hartley 52
Helvetius 57 Hobbes 91
Hume 65 Kant 80
Kaimes 86 Locke 72
Malebranche 77 Reid 86
Stewart 75 St. Lambert 88
Dramatists.
Alfieri 55 Corneille 78
Goethe 82 Massinger 55
Marlow 32 Otway 34
Racine 60 Schiller 46
Shakspeare 52 Voltaire 84
Congreve 59 Colman 61
Crebillon 89 Cumberland 80
Farquhar 30 Goldoni 85
B. Jonson 63 De Vega 73
Molière 53 Murphy 78
Authors on Law and Jurisprudence.
Bentham 85 Blackstone 57
Butler 83 Coke 85
Erskine 73 Filangieri 36
Gifford 48 Grotius 63
Hale 68 Holt 68
Littleton 75 Mansfield 88
Montesquieu 66 Redesdale 82
Romilly 61 Rolle 68
Tenterden 78 Thurlow 74
Vatel 53 Wilmot 83
Miscellaneous and Novel Writers.
Cervantes 70 Le Sage 80
Scott 62 Fielding 47
Smollett 51 Rabelais 70
Defoe 70 Ratcliffe 60
Richardson 72 Sterne 56
Johnson 75 Addison 48
Warton 78 Steele 59
Tickell 54 Montaigne 60
Bathurst 84 Thornton 44
Hawkesworth 59 Hazlitt 58
Authors on Revealed Religion.
Baxter 76 Bellarmine 84
J. Butler 60 Bossuet 77
Calvin 56 Chillingworth 43
Doddridge 54 G. Fox 67
J. Knox 67 Lowth 77
Luther 63 Massillon 79
Melancthon 64 Paley 63
Porteus 77 Priestley 71
Sherlock 67 Wesley 88
Whitefield 56 Wycliffe 61
Authors on Natural Religion.
Annet 55 Bolingbroke 79
Cardan 75 Chubb 65
Sir W. Drummond 68 Dupuis 67
N. Freret 61 Gibbon 58
Lord Herbert 68 Spinosa 45
St. Pierre 77 Shaftesbury 42
Tindal 75 Toland 53
Vannini 34 Volney 66
Medical Authors.
J. Brown 54 Corvisart 66
Cullen 78 Darwin 72
Fordyce 67 Fothergill 69
Gall 71 J. Gregory 48
Harvey 81 Heberden 92
J. Hoffman 83 Hunter 65
W. Hunter 66 Jenner 75
M. Good 64 Paracelsus 43
Pinel 84 Sydenham 66
Tissot 70 T. Willis 54
Philologists.
Bentley 81 Parr 80
Casaubon 55 Pighius 84
Hartzheim 70 Raphelengius 59
Heyne 84 J. J. Scaliger 69
H. Stephens 71 Pauw 61
Vossius 73 Porson 50
Burton 64 Salmatius 66
Cheke 44 Sigonius 60
J. Harman 77 Sylburgius 51
Lipsius 60 Wolfius 64
Artists.
Bandinelle 72 Bernini 82
Canova 65 Donatello 83
Flaxman 71 Ghiberti 64
Giotto 60 M. Angelo 96
San Sovino 91 Verocchico 56
A. Caracci 49 Claude 82
David 76 Guido 67
Raphael 37 Reynolds 69
Salvator Rosa 58 Titian 96
P. Veronese 56 West 82
Musical Composers.
Arne 68 Bach 66
Beethoven 57 Burney 88
Bull 41 Cimarosa 41
Corelli 60 Gluck 75
Greby 72 Handel 75
Haydn 77 Kalkbrenner 51
Kerser 62 Martini 78
Mosart 36 Paesiello 75
Piccini 71 Porpore 78
Scarlatti 78 Weber 40

To this list we may add the following instances of longevity from the late publication of Mr. Farren:

Adling 93 Hempel 86
Alcock 91 Hesse 91
Bernabel 89 Leveridge 90
Celdara 90 Lopez 103
Canpra 84 Pittoni 90
Casipini 90 Reike 100
Cervetti 101 Sala 99
Child 90 Schell 87
Creighton 97 Schramm 82
Eichole 80 Telleman 86
Genimani 96 F. Turner 99
Gibbons 93 W. Turner 88
Hasse 90 Wagennell 98

In regard to the mortality of musicians, we give with much pleasure the following extract from the same work:

“The ages of 468 persons at death, were all that could be obtained from a biography of musicians; of these, 109 born since the year 1740 are excluded, because some of their cotemporaries were yet living at the date of such biography, also 41 more are excluded as having died under 50 years of age. There remain then, the ages at death of 318 persons on which the present observation is made.

“From the ages of 50 years to the end of life, the apparent rate of mortality among musicians, appears very nearly with the lowest known rate, or that which prevails in villages, and it is scarcely probable that such rate should so agree without being the true one. For a musician to belong to the last class of human life, is very credible, when it is considered that eminence can only be attained by close mental devotion to an exalted science, and unremitting application to its practical acquirement, which abstraction would interrupt and intemperance destroy.

“The mean age of musicians, born since 1690, is 67¾ years, or two years greater than those born before 1690, from which it might be conveniently concluded, that the moderns were longer lived than the ancients. The case is precisely the reverse, at least for ages above 50, to which alone the materials are applicable. The expectation of life at the age of 60 of the ancients were nearly 15 years, of the modern musicians 13½. The materials (limited as they are) from which these conclusions are drawn, support the doctrine, that the mortality of the moderns is less at middle, but greater at advanced age, than the mortality of the ancients.”