and stage-coaches, deprived of all pleasure at sights and shews by taller persons taking their places before me ;-not to dwell, I say, on these and several other circumstances of the same nature, it provokes me to find, that though I can sometimes as absolutely forget my littleness as if I was as big as Goliah, yet my friends and acquaintance cannot, for one moment, lose the consideration. The minuteness of my person so entirely governs their idea of my character, that they are not able to detach the contemplation of one from the other; and, from the mere credit of having a larger quantity of clay and dirt put together in their huge frames than myself, they become (as Beatrice terms it) such valiant pieces of dust, that a man who has room enough in his bosom for more gall than a pigeon, must be moved with indignation. If they think of my marriage, they set themselves to consider what fairy they shall find for me, or whether it would not be better to cross the breed, by providing me an Amazon: they would have my chariot, like queen Mab's, made out of a hazel-nut: and as to a house, the case of a treble hautboy were a mansion for me.

A very intimate friend of mine one day inadvertently betrayed to me, that his wife always spoke of me by the name of " the baby;" but

my

afterwards, in order to mend the matter, he add-
ed, that she had no contemptible opinion of
person, for that she always said, "she never saw
such a little man that was so straight." In fami-
lies where I visit, growing lads of thirteen or four-
teen years of age are called out to stand back to
back with me, and measure whether there is any
difference between their height and mine: and
once, I remember, on my visit to an acquaint-
ance newly married, being introduced to the
bride, who was a fine tall woman (but a prude
or a wit, I cannot tell which), she held her head
so high, without making the least inclination of
her body, that I could as easily have scaled the
Monument as have come at the tip of her chin
without the help of a pair of steps. One day, just
after the passing of the broad wheel act, being on
a little
poney, the man of the turnpike, seeing
me and my nag approach, cried out, “ Nay, nay,
this must be above weight, I am sure;" and,
closing the gate, left me to go over the place
appointed for weighing the waggons. Another
time, after having dined at a nobleman's house,
I was honoured with the use of his lordship's
chariot to carry me home, but was desired first
to set down another of the company at St. James's
coffee-house. My fellow-traveller, if I may so
call him, was one of the biggest and tallest men

66

in the kingdom, and was at least four-and-twenty stone in weight. Thus ridiculously coupled, like a lean rabbit and a fat one, we engaged the attention of the whole street, particularly of the company at Arthur's, who stood laughing, as we passed by, to see the body of the chariot inclined all one way, as if we were driving on the slope of a hill, though the wheels ran on as smoothly and evenly as Madam Catharina's clockwork equipage on a parlour floor. But I must declare, that the most ridiculous distress I ever underwent, was, when my unfortunate curiosity carried me to see that wonderful phenomenon of nature, the Italian giant, scarce less than eight feet high! While the rest of the company were walking under his arm, he seemed to ex- . pect that I should have crept between his legs; and when I offered to present him with the usual gratuity, he absolutely refused to accept it, saying," that he thought it full as great a curiosity to see me, as I could possibly think it to see him." In short, my situation is almost as ridiculous as that of Gulliver in Brobdignag; and though I cannot, like him, be carried to the ridge of a house-top by a monkey, or be stuck upright, by an unlucky lad, in a marrow-bone, yet every day brings with it fresh instances of mortification.

But there is no circumstance moves my spleen more forcibly than the insolence of those whose stature very little exceeds my own, and who seem to look down on such urchins as myself with a consciousness of their happy superiority. One of these always affects to call me “ the little man;" and another small gentleman (a great actor, I mean, whom, in some future histrio-mastix, some nescio quid majus Rosciade, I may possibly take a peg or two lower) is fond of sidling up to me in all public places, as second rate beauties commonly contrive to take a dowdy abroad with them for a foil. For my own part, though I could wish to be taller, I never made use of any undue arts to appear so. I am content to submit my littleness fairly to the world. I never suffered my hat to rise into the air with a staring Kevenhuller, and I would as soon appear in stilts, as be lifted from the ground by double soles or high heels to my shoes. I rather endeavour to console myself by looking abroad in the world for great men of another order than those described by serjeant Kite: and so successful have been my researches of this kind, that I could set down a long catalogue of persons eminent in the state, in the professions, in arts and sciences (not to mention authors and actors), who are scarce taller than myself;

so that in this respect, we may fairly pronounce in favour of the present period, as Lord Clarendon has declared of his own, that "it was an age in which there were many great and wonderful men of that size." I do not know whether, in this extremity of war, any new raised regiment offers bounty-money for volunteers five feet high; but we flatter ourselves that, in case an invasion should take place, we could form a corps infinitely more formidable than the late king of Prussia's useless tall regiment.

I cannot close this paper without returning my thanks to the learned university of Oxford, and the illustrious Queensbury family, for having published the above-mentioned papers of Lord Clarendon, in which there is much matter of consolation to gentlemen of the like height and dimensions with myself. It there appears, that most of his lordship's intimate friends were great and wonderful men of low stature. Mr. Hales, he tells us, was one of the least men in the kingdom, and one of the greatest scholars in Europe. Mr. Chillingworth was of a stature little superior to Mr. Hales. Of his friend Sidney Godolphin he says, that there never was so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so large an understanding, and so unrestrained a fancy, in so very.