 and Infirmities of other old Men, but many more which arose
from the dreadful Prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative,
peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative; but uncapable of Friendship, and
dead to all natural Affection, which never descended below their Grand-children.
Envy and impotent Desires, are their prevailing Passions. But those Objects
against which their Envy seems principally directed, are the Vices of the
younger Sort, and the Deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find
themselves cut off from all Possibility of Pleasure; and whenever they see a
Funeral, they lament and repine that others are gone to an Harbour of Rest, to
which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no Remembrance of any
thing but what they learned and observed in their Youth and middle Age, and even
that is very imperfect: And for the Truth or Particulars of any Fact, it is
safer to depend on common Traditions than upon their best Recollections. The
least miserable among them, appear to be those who turn to Dotage, and entirely
lose their Memories; these meet with more Pity and Assistance, because they want
many bad Qualities which abound in others.
    If a Struldbrugg happen to marry one of his own Kind, the Marriage is
dissolved of Course by the Courtesy of the Kingdom, as soon as the younger of
the two comes to be Fourscore. For the Law thinks it a reasonable Indulgence,
that those who are condemned without any Fault of their own to a perpetual
Continuance in the World, should not have their Misery doubled by the Load of a
Wife.
    As soon as they have compleated the Term of Eighty Years, they are looked on
as dead in Law; their Heirs immediately succeed to their Estates, only a small
Pittance is reserved for their Support; and the poor ones are maintained at the
publick Charge. After that Period they are held incapable of any Employment of
Trust or Profit; they cannot purchase Lands, or take Leases, neither are they
allowed to be Witnesses in any Cause, either Civil or Criminal, not even for the
Decision of Meers and Bounds.
    At Ninety they lose their Teeth and Hair; they have at that Age no
Distinction of Taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without Relish or
Appetite. The Diseases they were subject to, still continue without encreasing
or diminishing. In talking they forget the common Appellation of Things, and the
Names of Persons, even of those who are their nearest Friends and Relations. For
the same Reason they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their
Memory
