.Comments on Corpulency, 269 



portfolio, are the persons, who will receive, with the greatest 

 latitude, this attempt at poqrtraying characters, which, from 

 their very nature, approach to caricature. 



CASES. 



Monstro, quod ipse tibi possis dare. — Juvenal. 



Case I. — Extract of a letter from , Esq. 



** You have long known that I experienced much incon- 

 venience from that embonpoint appearance, for which the weak 

 and ignorant are so apt to congratulate and flatter a person. 

 Inactivity, somnolency, depression of spirits, great nervousness, 

 as it is popularly called, but, above all, an unwillingness, or 

 rather inaptitude for long-continued study, were symptoms of 

 disease which I found very much increase ; and from all 

 the attention I was able to give to the subject, — from 

 what I had heard and read — but, above all, from its coin- 

 ciding with your opinion, I was at last perfectly confident, 

 that these symptoms principally arose from a too great accu- 

 mulation of fat. It was not difficult for me to account for 

 this accumulation, even supposing there was no natural 

 tendency to it in ray constitution. From earliest childhood 

 I was more inclined to read than to play, and when at 

 school, though not wanting mental activity, and possessing 

 considerable boldness of spirits, I was averse, and of course 

 totally unskilled, in all boyish amusements, as cricket, 

 trapball, &c. This partly arose from my being at that period 

 in a bad state of health, but chiefly, from having early received 

 the strongest impetus towards the attainments of knowledge, 

 and the ambition connected with it. 



" Sedentary occupations engrossed my whole time ; nor did 

 I relax from my temperate habits, which approached to ascetic 

 severity, till I became a student of the Temple, when I was 

 led to indulge in all the luxuries of the age, though never in 

 the least remitting every attention to literary attainments. 

 Possessing, at the same time, strong powers of digestion, and 

 being particularly partial to the most succulent aliment, as 

 sugar, butter, milk, &c. it is easy to foresee the consequence ; 

 I became extremely corpulent. 



*' I had approached my thirtieth year, however, before I 



APRIL— JUNE, 1828. T 



