598 A Lecture on Giants. [JUNE, 



carriage which he possesses, no doubt induced a very considerable Person- 

 age to pay the handsome compliment, that " he was the tallest and finest 

 man he had ever seen." 



But now that the writer of this has mounted the high horse, it is hardly 

 fair to leave the subject without discoursing of other giants ; for there have 

 been yet bigger men very many centuries ago. And so, without saying 

 any thing of the Swiss giantess or of the new Lincolnshire giant or of 

 the Swedish prodigy, who figured many years ago near the Green Man, 

 at Charing Cross or of the Saxon, his contemporary what may be said 

 of those bulky individuals, of whom the Scripture historian has spoken ? 

 " There were giants in the earth in those days ;" 



" Giants of mighty bone and bold emprise ;" 



of those sons of Anak, whose mien was so commanding as to create the 

 well-known proverb " Tall as the Anakims." Our nursery-tales, many 

 of which are derived from the purest truth, banter us not when they speak 

 of the giants. There was, indeed, once a land and valley of these great 

 people not to mention the Patagonians of this day. 



Ammon and Bashan were the countries where the biggest seem to have 

 dwelt ; and Og, the king of the latter place, is said to have been the last. 

 What sort of a man he was, may be judged by his occupying a bedstead of 

 iron, fifteen feet long, and nearly seven broad : he was the last even " of 

 the remnant," and was probably fifteen or sixteen feet high. 



Goliath and his kindred, whose names occur next in history as monsters 

 of prodigious size, were far beneath the ancient giants. Goliath measured 

 about eleven feet, and had a coat of mail which weighed upwards of one 

 hundred pounds arid a spear, the head of which exceeded twenty. 



Sir Walter Raleigh thought, that the most ancient Rephaims, or peo- 

 ple of vast height, were far beyond those whom Moses remembered in 

 his days that is, during his life ; and Virgil who, in common with other 

 poets, has mixed up much truth with richly-embellished fictions describes 

 his Cyclops with all the vividness of the most probable traditions. These 

 were brethren of the lofty Etna, posting their high heads unto the heavens 

 like the towering wood of Jove, or the grove of Diana. One of them, 

 Polyphemus, having had his eye put out with a large spit of ^Eneas's crew, 

 stalked after their boat, with most unconscionable strides, into the middle 

 of the sea, which, nevertheless, did not even touch his side. Eye he never 

 had but one ; and, having lost that, he could do no more than follow the 

 sound of the oars. Finding, however, that the bark outsailed him, and 

 that he would be utterly unable to take up the rogues' vessel who had 

 deprived him of his sight, and throw them against the shore, he set up a 

 tremendous roar so that the waves, the ocean, and the earth rung with 

 it, and the great mountain itself bellowed again with the noise. This 

 was about the year of the world 2284, when divers huge persons are said, 

 on all hands, to have been in existence. 



Now, as to the qualities of people that are bigger than others, are they 

 generally good or evil ? The author of an old book, called The Giant- 

 omachia, who denies that such people as giants ever lived, told the 

 world when he wrote, that the reason of the term " giant " was, because 

 there arose great oppressors in those ages, who were, therefore, likened to 

 immense monsters. But how could the idea of a monster get abroad, 

 unless somebody had seen one ? And Raleigh poor Sir Walter that 

 sensible, able, learned, unfortunate man, Raleigh declares, that much 



