On Dwarfs. even an approach to it. It was a happy simile of Franklin's, that an unmarried man was like a pair of seicsars wanting a leg, and to such as are undecided regarding matrimony, I would recommend the perusal of that celebrated man's letter on the subject. A man should marry while he is yet young, and if he live the term alloted to mortals, he may ere he die, tell a grandsire's tale, and have the gratification of seeing a respectable pro geny bustling through the world: if he marries late in life, he may by an unnatural union with youth, and sprightliness, and beauty sacrifice the essence of connubial bliss, viz. happiness." ON DWARFS. The ancients supposed that a race of men of diminutive stature composed a peculiar nation. Homer gives an account of a pigmy nation contending with the cranes; and however the poet might be supposed to exaggerate, Athenæus has gravely attempted to confirm this. If we attend to these, we must believe that in the internal parts of Africa there are whole nations of pigmy beings, not more than a foot in stature, who continually wage an unequal war with the birds and beasts that inhabit the plains in which they reside. Some of the ancients, however, and Strabo in particular. have supposed all these accounts to be fabulous, and have been more inclined to think this supposed nation of pigmies nothing more than a species of apes well known to be numerous in that part of the world. With this opinion the moderns have all concurred; and that diminutive race which was described as human, has been long degraded into a class of animals that resemble us but very imperfectly. The existence, therefore, of a pigmy race of mankind, being founded in error or in fable, we can expect to find men of diminutive stature only by accident, among men of the ordinary size. Of these accidental dwarfs, every country and almost every village can produce numerous instances. There was a time when these unfavoured children of nature were the peculiar favourites of the great; and no prince or nobleman thought himself completely attended unless he had a dwarf among the number of his domestics. These poor little men were kept to On Dwarfs. be laughed at, or to raise the barbarous pleasure of their masters, by their contrasted inferiority. Even in England, as late as the times of King James I. the court was at one time furnished with a dwarf, a giant, and a jester: these the king often took a pleasure in opposing to each other, and often fomented quarrels among them, in order to be a concealed spectator of their animosity. It was a particular entertainment of the courtiers at that time, to see little Jeffery, for so the dwarf was called, ride round the lists, expecting his antagonist, and discovering in his actions all the marks of contemptible resolution. In the reign of Charles I. a dwarf named Richard Gibson, who was a page of the back stairs, and a favourite at court, was married to Miss Ann Shepherd, a lady of equal height; the king honoured this singular wedding with his presence, and gave away the bride. Each of them measured three feet ten inches. This little pair were painted at whole length by Sir Peter Lely. They had nine children, five of which attained to maturity, and were well-proportioned to the usual standard of mankind. Mr. Gibson's genius led him to painting, in the rudiments of which art he was instructed by De Clein, Master of the Tapestry Works at Mortlake, and distinguished by his drawings for several of the cuts in Ogilby's Virgil, and Sandy's Translation of Ovid. Gibson's paintings in water colours were well esteemed, but the copies which he made of Lely's portraits gained him the greatest reputation. He had the honour to be employed in teaching Queen Anne the Art of Drawing, and was sent for into Holland to instruct her sister, the princess of Orange. To recompence the shortness of their stature, Nature gave them an equivalent length of days, for he died in the 75th year of his age; and his wife, having survived him almost twenty years, died in the year 1709, at the great age of 89. In the year 1710, Peter, Czar of Russia, celebrated a mar. riage of dwarfs, which was attended with great parade. Upon a certain day, which he had ordered to be proclaimed several months before, he invited the whole body of his courtiers, and all the foreign ambassadors to be present at the marriage of a pigmy man and woman. The preparations for this wedding were not only very grand, but executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. He ordered all the dwarf men and women, within two hundred miles, to repair to the capital; and also insisted that P On Dwarfs. For this purpose he they should be present at the ceremony. For this supplied them with proper vehicles; but so contrived it that one horse was seen carrying a dozen of them into the city at once, while the mob followed shouting and laughing from be hind. Some of them were at first unwilling to obey an order which they knew to be calculated to turn them into ridicule, and did not come; but he soon obliged them to obey; and as a punishment, enjoined that they should wait upon the rest at dinner. The whole company of dwarfs amounted to about seventy, besides the bride and bridegroom, who were richly adorned, and in the extremity of the fashion. For this little company in miniature, every thing was suitably provided; a low table, small plates, little glasses. and in short, every thing was so fitted, as if all things had been dwindled to their own standard. It was his great pleasure to see their gravity and their pride; the contention of the women for places, and the men for superiority. This point he attempted to adjust, by ordering that the most diminutive should take the lead; but this bred disputes, for none would then consent to sit foremost. All this however, being at last settled, dancing followed the dinner, and the ball was opened with a minuet by the bridegroom, whose height was exactly three feet two inches. In the end matters were so contrived that this little company, who met together in gloomy disgust, and with an unwillingness to be pleased, being at last familiarised to laughter, entered into the diversion, and became extremely sprightly and entertaining. PRIDE OF ANCESTRY. A lively desire of knowing and recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers: it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Fifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step for ward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy On Ancestry. The sat will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgement will rather tend to moderate than to suppress, the pride of an ancient and worthy race. irist may laugh, the philosopher may preach; but reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits, which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind. Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior order in the state, education and example should always, and will often produce among them a dignity of sentiment and propriety of conduct, which is guarded from dishonour by their own and the public esteem. If we read of some illustrious line so ancient that it has no beginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathise in its various fortunes; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm or even the harmless vanity of those who are allied to the honours of its name. For my own part could I draw my pedigree from a general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, I should study their lives with the diligence of filial love. In the investigation of past events, our curiosity is stimulated by the immediate or indirect reference to ourselves; but in the estimate of honour we should learn to value the gifts of nature above those of fortune; to esteem in our ancestors the qualities that best promote the interest of society, and to pronounce the descendant of a king less truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius whose writings will instruct or delight the latest posterity. The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world. After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Europe are lost in the darkness of the middle ages; but in the vast equality of the empire of China, the posterity of Confucius have maintained, above two thousand two hundred years, their peaceful honours and perpetual succession. The chief of the family is still revered, by the Sovereign and the people, as the image of the wisest of mankind. The nobility of the Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I considered the Fairy Queen as the most precious jewel of their coronet. Negociation-Perception assisted-A Pun. Cornucopia. Negociation.-An Irish gentleman, not very celebrated for correctness in pecuniary matters, was pressing a friend to lend him a sum of money on his bill. "But if I advance this, will you repay me punctually ?" said his friend. "I will," replied the Irish gentleman, with the expense of the protest and all! Perception assisted.-A poor man had an affair that puzzled him, and he much wished to have the advice of a neighbouring lawyer. "Indeed, my friend," said the lawyer, (not expecting any great fee from the man's appearance) your affair is so intricate, I cannot see where to begin.' The man took the hint, and giving him two half guineas, all he had," there's a pair of spectacles for you, Sir." A Pun.-A gentleman being rather hot pressed in company to sing a song, pettishly observed, that "they wished to make a butt of him." "By no means, my good fellow," rejoined we only want to get a stave out of one of his tormentois, you." The late Mr. Sheridan.-His father one day descanting on the pedigree of his family, was regretting that they were no longer styled O'Sheridan, as they had been formerly:-Indeed, father," replied the late celebrated character, then a boy, have more right to the O than any one else-for we owe every body." 66 we How to tame a Horse.--King James I. mounting a horse that was unruly, cried, "The deil's in ye sirrah, an' ye be na quiet, I'll sen' ye to the Five Hundred Kings in the House of Commons-they'll tame ye." A Press-gang-A Press-gang having seized a person of very genteel appearance, who urged as a plea for being set at liberty, that he was a gentleman:-a sailor, in reply, said, "So much the better-for we pressed a parcel of blackguards, and we want a gentleman to teach them good manners.' |