276 Comments on Corpulency* 



living — the breathing personification of enjoyment — the moral 

 type of merry-making. As soon as he could, he informed me 

 that he was a Norfolk gentleman, (dumpling, he might] have 

 said,) passing through London to Devonshire for milder air, 

 being troubled with " shortness of breath.'' He did not call to 

 consult me about that, but just to know if I had any specific to 

 cure corpulency. Seeing that he was truly, according to 

 Shakspeare's notion, " fat and scant of breath," I suggested 

 Radcliffe's remedy ; but he spurned such advice, he wanted the 

 specific. I assured him I knew of none, when, with a look of 

 good-humoured incredulity, he put into my hand the follow- 

 ing notice : — 



*' To the Corpulent. — Nothing, it is universally admitted, can 

 be more ungraceful and unsightly than a fat habit of body. It 

 causes a man to look like a beef-eater, and gives to the whole 

 person an air of extreme vulgarity. For this reason, a medical 

 gentleman of the first eminence has, for a series of years, di- 

 rected his study to the discovery of a remedy against this dis- 

 agreeable complaint. Nor have his long and laborious researches 

 been without success, insomuch that he has now the satisfac- 

 tion of announcing to the public that he has discovered a certain 

 specific, which will not only reduce the most corpulent person 

 to a graceful and slender habit, but effectually prevent all those 

 who take it from ever becoming fat, were they even to belong to 

 the Court of Aldermen, or to be constant attendants at vestry- 

 dinners. The proprietor pledges himself to the nobility and 

 gentry, that his said remedy is so perfectly safe and harmless, 

 that even a child at the breast may take it. To be had in bot- 

 tles, only ten shillings each, duty included, at a Fancy shop^ 

 Bare-bone passage.'' 



Simplicity of character has been considered as a most ami- 

 able and enviable quality, and this man was the most striking 

 personification of it I ever met with. We may presume it was 

 the characteristic of his family, for he was seeking the specific 

 by the advice of his maiden sister! who was " counted" rather 

 clever. 



The positive conviction that the whole was a joke seemed to 

 disappoint him, for he expected that, with the specific in his 

 pocket, he was to live ad libitum ; and his worthy sister no 



