Comments on Corpulency. (H 



of the soul ; and naturalists have gone so far as to make it the 

 organ of civilization, from the fanciful hypothesis, that animals 

 submit to domestication in proportion to the subjection in which 

 their will is held by their appetite : certain it is, that the stub- 

 born and rebellious are remarkable for their indifference to the 

 pleasures of the table ; and that *' short commons " and insub- 

 ordination are uniform, as cause and effect, upon the princir 

 pie, no doubt, of Sancho Pancha's reasoning — that " when the 

 stomach is full the bones will be resting." 



The variation in the capacities and powers of living organs— 

 the peculiarities and deviations from the ordinary course of 

 the human constitution, or what has been termed idiosyncrasy ^ 

 particularly as relating to the stomach, affords much amusing 

 ** materiel." 



We find sometimes very stout, strong persons, particularly 

 Northern cousins, from some peculiar idiosyncrasy, or some 

 meagrim in the chylopoietic functions, cannot endure certain 

 of the most agreeable and innocent articles of food ; — thus fish, 

 flesh, fowl, butter, cheese, bacon, and good red-herring, each 

 in its turn, is despised and loathed. It puzzles philosophy to 

 account for some of these whimsicalities. As for instance, why 

 a man six feet high should faint away at the sight of a shoulder 

 of mutton ; why another tall gentleman should have muttonic 

 aversions so great, as to be able to point a mutton-pie, as a 

 pointer would a partridge ; — while a third " Herculean deli- 

 cate," minces his meat, and puts aside all fat, gristle, and skin, 

 with the fastidiousness of a puny school-girl. 



Another peculiarity that excites our astonishment, is the va- 

 riety in the capacity and power of the stomach, which enables 

 one man to swallow the whole of another man's grievance, — 

 for there are those who would eat an entire shoulder of mutton 

 in as little time as his anti-muttonic neighbour would be 

 recovering from the sight of it*. Much of both these evils 

 arises from the error of early education, and the force of habit; 

 and both are to be controlled, or at any rate moderated by the 

 will, as might be illustrated by some singular examples. 



♦ It is recorded on the tombstone of James Parsons, buried at Teddington, March 

 7, 1 743, that he had often eaten a whole shoulder of mutton and a peck of hasty 

 pudding. 



