240 Facts towards a History of 



time put down — eighteen yards of black-puddings (London 

 measure) have suddenly been imprisoned in his sowse-tub.'^ 



He was by no means difficult to please in cookery, nor was 

 he nice in his palate. The peacock of SamoSi the woodcock 

 of Phrygia, the cranes of Malta, the pheasant of Englandy 

 were all baubles with him. He was an Englishman, and 

 English diet served his turn. " If the Norfolk dumpling and the 

 Devonshire white-pot be at variance," says Taylor, ** he will 

 atone them ; the hag-puddings of Gloucestershire, the black- 

 puddings of Worcestershire, the pan-puddings of Shropshire, 

 the white-puddings of Somersetshire, the pasty-puddings of 

 Hampshire, and the pudding-pies of any shire, all is one to 

 him ; nothing comes amisse, a contented mind is worth all ; 

 and let any thing come in the shape of eating stuff, it is wel- 

 come.'* 



Taylor seems to have had it in contemplation to make money 

 of him, by exhibiting him at the Bear-garden, but Wood dis- 

 appointed his scheme, and for very substantial reasons— first, 

 as he was waxing old, and having lost all his teeth, but one, 

 in eating a quarter of mutton, bones and all, he feared he 

 should lose his reputation, though he could eat a fat wether, 

 if it were boiled ; and secondly, he feared, that if the king 

 should hear of one who ate so much, and could work so 

 little, an order would come to hang him*. 



In more recent times, there has been some well authenti- 

 cated cases in the public journals ; and some are to be found 

 in the Philosophical Transactions, 



In 1700, there lived at Stanton, seven miles from Bury, a 

 labouring man of middle age, who for many days together 

 had such an inordinate appetite, that he would eat up an ordi- 

 nary leg of veal, or a leg of mutton, at a meal. He would eat 



* While Charles Gustavus, the successor to Christina, queen of Swe- 

 den, was besieging Prague, a boor of most extroardinary visage, desired 

 admittance into the royal tent, and offered, by way of amusing the king, to 

 devour a whole hog, of one hundred weight, in his presence. The cele- 

 brated old general, Konis;smarc, was at this time standing by the king's 

 side, and though a soldier of great courage, being tainted in some degree 

 with superstition, hinted to his royal master, that the peasant ought to be 

 burnt for a sorcerer. " Sir," said the fellow, highly irritated by the 

 observation, *' if your majesty will but make that old gentleman take <jff 

 his sword and his spurs, t will eat him immediately before I begin the 

 hog." 



