Your voice in song upraised robust and clear, Your thoughts with noble studies occupied. That good is yours which is for man designed.

II

"Weary and woeful is senectitude

E'en when from penury and aches 'tis free," Cries one, "for that it brings debility, And warns us of the grisly monarch rude." Yet he who holds in rein his passions crude, Nor rends the blossoms from life's growing tree, Gathers in age fruits sweet and fair to see, For Nature is with purpose kind endued. If I, now years come on, am weak and ill, Not time, but I, am cause of this my woe. Too much I heeded headlong appetite. And though to save the wreck I bend my will, 'Tis vain, I fear I ever older grow, And aged error is not soon set right.

III

In hermit caverns, where the desert glowers,
The ancient Fathers lived on frugal fare—
Roots, cresses, herbs—avoiding viands rare,
Nor had they palates less refined than ours.
From their example, confirmation flowers

Of what you tell me, and in mind I bear That feasts which folly spreads on tables fair Our frames enfeeble and reduce our powers.

The wish in man is native to remain

Long with the living, for to live is sweet.
His wish he may by abstinence attain.

Dame Reason counsels, sober and discreet,
This way that solid privilege to gain,

And tardy to the realm of shades retreat.

L

OUIS CORNARO (ancient Venetian, Alvise; modern Italian, Luigi, Lodovico, or Ludovico),-often styled The Venetian Centenarian,-the author of the famous treatise, "The Temperate Life," which forms the main portion of this volume, was born in the city of Venice in the year 1464.

Although a direct descendant of the illustrious family of Cornaro, yet, defrauded in some way through the dishonest intrigues of some of his relatives, we are but imperfectly acquainted with the circumstances, he was deprived of the honors and privileges attached to his noble birth, and excluded from all public employment in the State. A man of great personal and family pride, he felt very keenly the humiliation of this treatment; and, as a consequence, he withdrew from his native place and made the city of Padua his home for the remainder of his life, save for brief seasons of summer retirement to his country-seats.

Yet that, which, at the time, must have seemed to him a great misfortune, proved eventually a blessing; and doubtless, during the long course of his remarkable career, Cornaro's philosophic mind often reverted with thankfulness to those very indignities, but for which, perhaps, he would never have received the chief incentive of his life; for may we not believe it was because of them that he resolved to found for himself a more honorable name-one that should rest upon a sounder and more worthy basis than mere family pride. This determination, whatever may have inspired it,

proved, as we learn in his narrative, to be the crisis of his life, changing, as if by magic, its entire course; and it resulted in the establishment of a fame, not only great in his own day, but which continues to increase as time rolls on.

In order to accomplish the purpose uppermost in his mind, the first thing to which he gave his constant and most intelligent attention was the securing of perfect health, which heretofore he had never known, and which he recognized as the best armor for the warfare of life; a knowledge, the importance of which-in his day, as in ours-few fully realized. At the details of this glorious work, as well as its happy results, we shall here take only a hasty glance; for the picture he has painted is by the hand of a master, and no one but himself can do it justice.

Born with a very delicate constitution, accompanied unfortunately by a choleric disposition, Cornaro furthermore gave evidence, in early life, of careless habits which finally developed into those of intemperance; and, though destined to leave behind him a name imperishable, because of virtues based upon a complete subjugation of every passion, was almost destroyed, before he reached the age of forty, by those natural and acquired infirmities, which, for years, had made his days and nights an almost continual martyrdom.

Finally convinced that his unnatural habits would, if persisted in, soon be the cause of his death, and possessed of that determined courage and resolution, which, on a closer acquaintance, we shall recognize and learn to admire as his chief trait, he changed his manner of life so completely that, in a very brief time, his diseases disappeared, giving place to a rugged health and serenity of mind hitherto unknown to him. In a word, from a despairing and almost helpless invalid, unfit for either work or enjoyment, he became not only a man of perfect health, singularly active and happy, but also such an example of complete self-restraint as to be the wonder and admiration of all who knew him, earning and receiving the title of The Temperate. The mildness and sweetness of his altered disposition at the same time gained for him the fullest respect and affection.

In the city of Udine, northern Italy, he married Veronica di Spilimbergo,* a daughter of the noble house of that name.

He very much desired children, not only for every natural reason, but also in order that his own offspring might inherit the large fortune which he possessed. Though for a long time disappointed in this hope, he was finally made very happy by the advent of a little daughter, born when he and his wife were both well advanced in years; to her they gave the name of Chiara (Clara).** In due time she was married to one of her own name and kindred, Giovanni (John), the son of Fantino Cornaro, a member of the wealthy and powerful Cornaro Piscopia branch of the family. She became the mother of eight sons and three daughters, all of whom the grandfather as we learn from his own words-lived to see and enjoy.

Having faithfully observed that wise law of Nature, moderation, for so many years, he anticipated, with a confidence which the sequel will show was neither unfounded nor disappointed, a happy and prosperous life of not less than a century; and this span he was equally certain he would have been able to extend considerably, had it been his good fortune to have begun life with the advantages he assures us his teachings will confer on the children of all who lead the temperate life it had been his delight to follow.

To the very close of his wonderful career he retained his accustomed health and vigor, as well as the possession, in their perfection, of all his faculties. No hand but his own can faithfully give us an account of the recreations and pleasures of that happy old age for which he entreats all to strive. But we may sum it all up in the one brief line wherein he assures us: "I never knew the world was beautiful until I reached old age." Of the knowledge that his was an instance without a parallel, he himself was not ignorant. In this thought he not only took a pardonable pride, but derived one of the greatest joys of his old age, when he reflected that while many others before him had written eulogies upon a life of temperance and regularity, no one, at the end of a century of life, had ever taken pen in hand to leave to the world **See Note C

*See Note D

the story of a personal participation in the many indescribable blessings, which, for so many years, it had been his lot to enjoy; nor had any one, after recovering broken health, lived to such an age to tell the world how he had done so.

The one thought uppermost in his heart was that of gratitude for his recovery, and for the countless blessings of his long life. This sentiment he hoped would ever continue to bear substantial fruit; for he lived and died in the belief that his labors in writing a faithful account of his experience, would result, for all time, in benefiting those who would listen to him. He was convinced that if he, who had begun life under so many disadvantages, could attain perfect health and continue in it for so many years, the possibilities of those blessed with a perfect constitution and aided, from childhood, with the temperate rule of life, must indeed be almost unlimited. It will be difficult to find anywhere recorded an instance wherein constitutional defects, aggravated by unwise habits of life, threatened a more untimely death; and if Cornaro, with a constitution naturally weak and apparently ruined at the age of forty, could attain such results, who will presume to set a limit to the possibilities of longevity for the human family, after consecutive generations have faithfully observed Nature's wise laws?

Loaded with testimonials of the gratitude and reverence of many who had profited by his example and advice,— which knowledge of this benefit to others was, as he assures us, among the sweetest of his many blessings, he passed the evening of his life honored by all, and in the enjoyment of the friendship and esteem of the most eminent of his countrymen. Having devoted his best years to the accomplishment of what he firmly believed to be his mission in this world,—a consecrated task, that of bringing home to his fellow-men the realization of the inevitable consequences of intemperance,-he patiently waited for the end. When death came, it found him armed with the resignation of the philosopher and a steadfastly courageous faith in the future, ready and glad to resign his life. Peacefully, as he had expected and foretold, he died at his palace in Padua, April