SKELETON OF THE IRISH GIANT. 331 bility of increasing the human stature by means of medicaments. It was said that by such means he increased the power of digestion so much in the subject, as to enable him to take great quantities of food, to which cause his great stature was attributed. But, unfortunately for the story, this last circumstance (voraciousness) is known to produce quite the contrary effect. Instead of enlarging, it diminishes the human frame; so that we may at once discharge the bishop from this tax upon his humanity so gratuitously levied by persons evidently ignorant of the first principles of animal economy. Besides, such overgrown persons are not so very uncommon in Ireland, and it is remarkable that the largest of them were born and reared among the poorer classes, who, like the poor of other countries, rarely possess any redundancy of food. Magrath had attained the height of nearly eight feet at seventeen years old, and was shown in various cities of Europe as the Irish Giant; he died in his twentysecond year, not from mere exhaustion, as has been reported, but from the effects of a severe injury in the chest, which brought on a rapid decline. From an inspection of the bones, it would appear that he was a man of great physical power. Of this we have heard some instances. His lower jaw is larger in proportion than the other parts. The spine appears to be finely formed; no sign of weakness appears in that part, though persons ignorant of anatomy believe that the beautiful curvature of the vertebral column is a proof of general debility. In other respects, also, the skeleton shows a sound and perfect state of constitution, though more than sixty years in its present condition. a This accident was caused by a young college-man, named Hare, who with some of his companions went to see Magrath. Hare was not above the middle size, but was muscular and athletic. He believed himself strong enough to hold Magrath at arm's length, and a trial soon took place. Magrath, however, soon lifted his antagonist off the ground, by grasping his arms near the elbows: Hare got vexed at being thus exhibited, and suddenly struck Magrath a violent blow with his head on the chest, which nearly knocked the poor fellow down. He did not resent the injury, but he attributed his mortal illness to that cause. 332 SKELETON OF THE OSSIFIED MAN. In another glazed alcove is the skeleton of the ossified subject; and the common account of this most extraordinary case, shews a still greater power of invention than even that of Magrath. The following authentic statement is copied from the original papers drawn up by the late Dr. Edward Barry, of Dublin, who had the subject in his possession, and afterwards presented it to the college. William Clarke, the subject of this article, was the son of John Clarke, a soldier in Sir Richard Aldworth's company. William was born in 1677, and very soon shewed symptoms of this most uncommon disease: even in his infancy he never could turn his head to either side, or even bend his body. As he grew up, he could not raise his hands higher than to the level of his elbows, nor could he ever put them behind his back. His under jaw becoming fixed, he could never open his mouth; but previous to this time, his teeth being broken by accident, he sucked in soft food. Though often intoxicated with liquor, it never made him sick but once, and then he was very near being suffocated. When he walked, he stepped first with the right foot, which he did with much difficulty, he then dragged the left foot to the right heel whenever he tumbled down by accident, he never could rise without assistance. There were cavities made in his bed, in which he placed his hips, knees, and elbows. In his youth, he managed with difficulty to creep from Sir Richard's house to the village of Newcastle; but as he advanced in years, he grew quite inactive, so that at last he could scarcely move the length of his patron's kitchen, where he spent most of his time, and where he experienced the most benevolent attention. He was sometimes placed to look over the workmen, but when he was once fixed in his station, there he remained. He stood in a kind of sentry-box, with a board placed in a groove, as high as his breast, for him to lean on. He had always a bony excrescence issuing out of his left heel, which sometimes grew to the length of two SKELETON OF THE OSSIFIED MAN. 333 inches, and then it shed as a deer does its horns, but continued to sprout as before. Towards the latter part of his life, several long excrescences were observed in his thighs and arms, which he had not in his youth. He died in the year 1738, in his 62nd year. The immediate cause of his death was probably an inflammation of his lungs; for as they adhered to the pleura and ribs, they became immovable, as well as the diaphragm; the capacity of the thorax was also diminished: all which concurring, caused him to have a constant quick respiration, which terminated in a fatal oppression; otherwise he might have lived till all the bones had been so much increased as that the ribs and whole thorax would have become one trunk of bone. He had been dead five days before he was opened, so that the muscular parts began to dissolve. His viscera had nothing in them remarkably preternatural, except that his lungs adhered closely to the pleura. The attitude or posture in which he had become fixed for some time before his death, is that of bending forward a little, the arms inclining inwards, the right one lower than the left. His left foot resting on the toes, the leg at that side appears shorter than the right one. The lower part of the trunk is so much bent outward as not to be seen when the subject is viewed in front. There is scarcely a bone in the whole mass, of its proper form, except the tibia and fibulæ, which are not much distorted. He is one entire bone from the top of his head to his knees. The sutures of his skull are more united than in common skulls. The jaw bones are entirely fixed, as before mentioned, and the back teeth joined together. A bone grew from the back of his head, which shoots down to his back, passing by the vertebræ at an inch distance; this bone unites with the vertebræ of the back and the right scapula, from which it disengages itself again, and continues distinct in two parts near the small of the back, and fixes itself into the hip bone behind. The vertebræ of the back are one continued bone. There are various ramifications from his os-coccygis and thigh 334 THE PROVOST'S HOUSE. bones, not unlike the shoots of coral; infinitely more irregular, some in knobs and clusters, others in irregular shoots of eight and nine inches long. His knees are pretty close together, inclining to the right. His left shoulder is higher than his right one. A bone of his arm, the ulna, was once broken by a fall, and as if to prevent a similar accident, another bone shot out from the lower part of the humerus, a little above the bend of the elbow; this passed over the joint and fracture, and united to the broken bone below the injured part in such a way as to make it much stronger than it was before. All the cartilages of the breast, except four, were ossified; these served to assist in respiration. On dissecting him, a bone was found in the fleshy part of his arm, quite disengaged from any other bone: it is three or four inches long, a quarter of an inch broad, with ramifications. Another strange circumstance is, that while these isolated parts were growing, he never complained of any pain in his muscles. This very extraordinary skeleton is still in a tolerable state of preservation, although it shews evident. symptoms of decay; a circumstance by no means surprising, when we consider that it has now been exposed to the ordinary action of the atmosphere for more than 100 years. skeleton of a Delphine The creature run itself In this place, also, is the Orca: this is 30 feet long. on shore at Hythe, about 28 years ago, and was captured by the fishermen. SECTION VI. THE PROVOST'S HOUSE. This mansion stands on the east side of Grafton Street, about 20 yards from the western flank of the Grand or Parliament Square, from which a doorway opens to a covered corridor, about 40 feet in length, which leads directly to another doorway in the north flank of this edifice; and this is the passage by which |