Of his long-lasting life may be some cause.
Taylor thus describes the person of Parr:
From head to heel, his body had all over
A quick-set, thick-set, natural hairy cover.
The Vegetarians maintain that their system of living conduces highly to longevity. We find in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1774, this recorded instance: “At Brussels, Elizabeth de Val, aged 103, who was remarkable for never having eaten a bit of meat in her life.”
An advocate of vegetable diet adduces the Norwegian and Russian peasantry as the most remarkable instances of extreme longevity: “The last returns of the Greek Church population of the Russian empire give (in the table of the deaths of the male sex) more than one thousand above 100 years of age, many between 140 and 150.... Slaves in the West Indies are recorded from 130 to 150 years of age.” Widow Rogers, of Penzance, Cornwall, who died 1779, aged 118, for the last sixty years lived entirely on vegetable diet.
Among the Pythagoreans of our time should be mentioned Sir Richard Phillips, who from his twelfth year conceived an abhorrence of the slaughter of animals for food; and from that period to his death, at the age of 72, he lived entirely on vegetable products, enjoying such robust health that no stranger could have suspected his studious and sedentary habits.[[51]] Sometimes this Pythagorean principle was strongly enunciated; as, when about to take his seat at a supper-party, perceiving a lobster on the table, he loudly denounced the cruelty of his friends’ sitting down to eat a creature which had been boiled alive! and the offensive dish had to be removed. Sir Richard often published his Reasons for not eating Animal Food; his abstinence drew upon him the harmless ridicule of a writer in the Quarterly Review, observing that, although he would not eat meat, he was addicted to gravy over his potatoes.
One Wilson, of Worlingworth, Suffolk, who died 1782, aged 116, for the last forty years of his life supped off roasted turnips, to which he ascribed his long life.
The Hon. Mrs. Watkins, of Glamorganshire, who died 1790, aged 110, for her last thirty years lived principally on potatoes. The year before her death she came from Glamorgan to London to see Mrs. Siddons play, and attended the theatre nine nights; and one morning she mounted to the Whispering-gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
It is rarely that table-wits attain such longevity as did Captain Morris, the Anacreon of the Beef-steak Club, who wrote lyrics at the age of 90. He died three years afterwards. He was of short stature, and usually wore a buff waistcoat, such as he apostrophised in one of his latest lyrics, “The old Whig Poet to his old Buff Waistcoat.” He lies in the churchyard of Betchworth, Surrey,—his grave simply marked by a head and foot stone, 1838.