600 A Lecture on Giants. [JUNE, 



every body as he was, he had a spiteful spirit belonging to him, which 

 proved fatal to a certain Mr. Crofts. This young spark, who might have 

 been bred up in the racy pleasures of impaling spiders, or pinning flies, 

 perceiving an animal just fitted for his sport, fell in with the general bait- 

 ing which poor Jefferie was so wont to suffer. But he hunted his game 

 too hard ; for, Hudson having challenged him, he came to the field with 

 a squirt; and that exasperated little Ulysses so much, that 'he contrived 

 to be hoisted on a horse, with a pistol, and his adversary having done the 

 same, the aggressor was shot dead at the first fire. Little Lord Minimus 

 was in the habit of stalking about, in rich silks and satins, with two tall 

 men to wait upon him, and so drew upon his dwarfship the dangerous 

 honour of being celebrated by the wits of the day. *' The Jeffreidos ; or, 

 a Battle between the Corpusculum* and a Turkey-Cock," was sent forth 

 by Sir William Davenant ; and, " A New Year's Gift, presented by 

 Lady Parvula to the Lord Minimus, his Majesty's Servant/' was among 

 the incenses which were offered him. This last is dedicated to Evans, and 

 begins 



" Will, be not angry; this snsall booke is read 

 In praise of one no bigger than thy head. 1 ' 



The address is entirely in praise of smallnesses : 



" You have seene, Sir," it says, " the commodity of little, and discommodity 

 of great in others ; take notice of them in yoursette : Had you beene bigge and 

 great, ten to one you had never proved a courtier ; 'twas onely your littlenesse 

 preferred you." 



It consoles the little man with proverbs : 



" Too much of one thing is good for nothing." 

 '* A little of every thing is excellent in all things. 1 ' 

 " All things are not as they seeme." 



* Have you not heard of men that stumble at strawes, and leap over 

 blockes." 



" Amore meum, et nihil meumj' &c. 



The Lady Parvula closes by wishing the " most perfect abridgment of 

 Nature many merry new-yeares.'' 



And so you, whoever may please to read this, and whenever qito- 

 cunque et quandocunque (the Latins more neatly have it) I wish you 

 a merry season. t 



Little body. 



f There has not been one-tenth part of the giants mentioned here, which people of 

 different countries and times have written about. Goropius, the Dutch physician, who 

 thought that Adam talked Flemish, says that he saw a girl ten feet high ; and when bones 

 have been found in fields, there have not been wanting virtuosi whose sedulous measure- 

 ments have whipped up the respective heights to twenty, twenty-five, and even thirty 

 feet. Why are we to be incredulous about our own magnificent species, when the world 

 are content to believe and very properly, no doubt the grand stories of the Icthyosaurij 

 Plesiosauri, and Megatheria ? 



