I can in hopes of seeing you. If I am not here you will find his brother-in-law Dr. Oliphant. I am, Dear Sir, Your most humble Servant, Jo. ARBUTHNOT. LETTER LXVIII. From the same to the same. [Oct. 1708.] DEAR SIR, I HAVE been extremely afflicted for the loss of our worthy friend Dr. Gregory. I am sure you have lost a true and sincere friend and an agreeable companion. I gave you the account of his death, the manner of which was as became a good and a wise man. The first resolution was to have buried him at Oxford, which indeed I was mightily for, but there was no body there to embalm the body, and before we could have got people from London it would have smelt, they having let four and twenty hours pass without doing any thing: besides his poor wife was in a distraction what to do, whether to go to her family, one of which was dead, and the rest sick of the small pox, so that when all circumstances were considered, and she had talked with her brother Dr. Oliphant, it was thought ad visable to bury him at Maidenhead, where he was attended very decently, Mr. Cherry having been very serviceable. Mrs. Gregory desires to do all the honour to his memory that she can, and if it be usual to make a monument in another place, she would willingly erect one in Oxford.* I should be glad [if] you would talk with his worthy friend the Dean of Christ Church about this matter. His papers relating to Apollonius are to be put in Mr. Dean's hands. We are * A monument was erected to his memory on one of the north-west pillars in the nave of St. Mary's Church, Oxford, by his widow, with the following inscription: P.M. DAVIDIS GREGORII, M.D. Aberdeniæ natus, Jun. 24, 1661, Deinde Oxonii Astronomic Professor Savilianus. Obiit Oct. 10, A.D. 1708.* Etatem Illi heu brevem Natura concessit Sibi Ipse longam prorogavit Desideratissimo Viro ELIZABETHA UXOR. M. P. * The writers of Gregory's Life in the Biographia have given a very erroneous description of this monument, and have made him die in 1710. The concurrent testimonies of the preceding letters and notes will correct that account. using our interest for John Keill, but have great difficulties to manage some people. I shall trouble you to give my services to my friends at Oxford. I am, with all respect, Sir, Your most obliged friend, and most humble servant, Jo. ARBUTHNOT. LETTER LXIX. Mr. BROKESBY to Mr. T. HEARNE Longevity.-Names of Places. As for the Authors who have given us an account of long-lived persons, Dr. Hakewell's Apology is not to be forgotten; as I question but the like may be found in Mr. Wanley's Wonders in the Little World, and I conjecture in Dr. T. Fuller's Worthies. Those you mention in France are very considerable. Mr. Dodwell tells me of a remarkable instance, that he had from one Mr. Atherton, a native of Lancashire, and his cotemporary at the college in Dublin, of a woman whom he had seen, commonly called "The Cricket of the Hedge," that lived in Lancashire, who remembered Bosworth Field. I purpose by friends in those parts to procure an account of her, and if it be considerable to impart it to you. There was a woman in my parish in Yorkshire, named Jane Wilson, who gave out that she was six-score years old, and after, seven score, and hence had many visitants from whom she got money. She was born before registers were kept in country parishes, which was not till the 3d or 4th year of Queen Elizabeth, tho' there were injunctions for them in King Edward the 6th reign. Hence I could have no light for the time of her baptism. The account she gave me of her self would not amount to what she pretended. She said she was 50 years old when she was married, that she had bin married two years before she had her eldest son; his age we had in our register. This raised her age to about 113, when she dyed. Tho' it is unusual, it is not incredible, for women to have children at that age, in that Fra, Junius on Ruth, in the *The introduction of Parochial Registers in England was in consequence of the injunctions of Thomas Lord Cromwell, which, according to Holinshed, were set forth in September, 1538, the thirtieth year of Henry VII. but were not much attended to, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who issued injunctions concerning them in the 1st, 7th, and 39th years of her reign. It appears that in Spain they had been in use many years before, and are said to have been instituted by Cardinal Ximenes, in order to remedy the disorders arising from the frequency of divorces in that country, in the year 1497. Preface, if I mistake not, tells of a woman in the Palatinate of the Rhine, who had gemellos at the 155th year of her age, whom he had seen. This might happen to women of extraordinary constitutions, and such we must conclude them to be, who arrive at so great an age, tho' diet and exercise may conduce much thereto. This poor woman's habitation could help little thereto, tho' such as she was well pleased with, all being but one room, a hearth against the end wall built of a coarse stone, and a hole above to let out the smoke. Her food was plain, parsnips boiled or soused in whey, and sweetened with sugar or molasses was a great dish with her, and I believe chiefly used by her. A pigeon, or the like, and a draught or two of ale were very acceptable, with which my wife used to gratify her, when she came to my house, which was about a measured mile from her own, and yet she walked it, even within less than a year before she died. You will excuse this story as told to your self, tho' unfit for the Britannia; tho' there was one such of a man who died about two or three years since at Northampton, whose exact age I have forgotten. Mr. Wood takes notice of Mother George in Oxford. As for your supposal that Wargrave was a place where some battle was fought, from the etymology of the word, Mr. Dodwell looks on it as only an ingenious conjecture, unless you had |