388 THE SHORT GKNTLEMAN. 



carpet? No, they are circumstances truly the reverse, and, alone 

 warrant my considering the accessory deficit in the light of a primi- 

 tive curse. An umbrella, that indispensable comfort in this moist 

 climate, I may not use, being unequal to the fatigue of lifting it over 

 the head of every grenadier I meet, and unwilling, by hazarding the 

 equilibrium of chapeau, to give their tall owners the happy opportunity 

 of bullying an obviously non-armipotent transgressor. A man cannot 

 walk about with his great coat strapped to his back like a groom ; 

 yet such would expediency require of me. Others ean borrow a 

 friend's cloak or roquelaure in a case of emergency. Were / to do 

 so, I should also need to rob him of his foot-boy for a train-bearer. 



I am fond of seeing public shows, but suffer a double martyrdom 

 in most endeavours ; once, in body, from suffocation amidst the 

 crowd, and a second time, in mind, by being unable to catch a 

 glimpse beyond the lofty head dresses of the ladies whichhave rendered 

 the Pit at the Opera to me but an impervious grove of feathers and 

 flowers inodorous ; whence, as I cannot afford a box, I am virtually 

 banished from a favourite place of amusement. At the two great 

 theatres I can see, and, when Kean acts, seldom miss a night. 



" There are, who think the stature all in all, 

 Nor like a hero if he be not tall ; 

 The feeling sense all other wants supplies, 

 I rate no actor's merit by his size. 

 Superior height requires superior grace, 

 And what's a giant with a vacant face." 



This was Churchill's opinion, and a fortiori mine. After witness- 

 ing K can's personation of the jealous Moor, I can think of my fate 

 with something like temper ; and returning home, whilst the im- 

 pression lasts, to contemplate the bust of Napoleon on my mantle- 

 piece, I could well nigh cry " content." Midst all the admiration 

 lavished on the unparalleled self-exaltation worked by the latter, I 

 wonder more stress has not been laid on his having so entirely over- 

 come the disadvantages of figure : disadvantages so immediate in a 

 commanding career. In my eyes that fact honours him with double 

 glory. He directed the axe to many obsolete prejudices, and 

 amongst the rest (for which, hallowed be his memory !) heaved down 

 a villainous one that had rendered a huge hulk of bone and muscle 

 as essential to our ideal of a hero as a white plume on a long-tailed 

 charger. Perish such ignorant conceits ! Were immortal Caesar, Fre- 

 derick of Prussia, Napoleon, " Macedonia's Madman and the Swede," 

 who snuffed the air further from terra Jirma than their neighbours ? 

 History tells us not. Why then does not a coincidence so remark- 

 able, curb the overweening prance of Brobdignagian pride ? Or 

 rather, I would ask how, in the face of these controverting evidences, 

 they ever dared to measure heroism by a foot rule ? That our fore- 

 fathers were not so besotted as to square their views of men by such 

 a medium is recorded in their treasured legends of the doughty 

 Thumb and giant-quelling John ; both erroneously supposed fabu- 

 lous personages, but, in reality, ancient British knights, famed alike 

 for enterprise and paucity of inches. But this signifies nought : my 



