158 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



If the degeneracy of the bodies of men began fo early, I think, 

 it will not be prefumed that it has ceafed within thefe laft two or 

 three hundred years. There is an author, Joannes Baptifta Porta, a 

 Ncopolitan, who wrote a book of a great deal of learning and obfer- 

 vation, upon, what I think a curious fubjed:, Phyfiognomy. It is 

 printed in Naples in 1602. He, fpeaking of the human ftature, fays *, 

 ' That, in this middle climate, (meaning Italy), the middle ftature 

 * is fix feet and a half; but fcven or eight feet is a great ftature. 

 ' In the northern countries, where the men are larger, thejufl: 

 ' ftature is feven feet ; but a tall man is eight or nine feet.' I can 

 give no reafon why an author, who does not, maintain an hypothefis 

 as I do, that there is a degeneracy of the bodies of men, fhould ex- 

 aggerate in this matter ; and therefore I take the fadl juft as he gives 

 it, and I aft^ whether it be true that, at prefent, the middle fize of 

 the men of Italy is fix feet and a-half, and of the northern coun- 

 tries, feven feet ? 



That he does not exaggerate with refpe<fl to the ftatureof the 

 men of the northern countries, I am convinced by the ftature of 

 King Henry Darnley, huft^and to Mary Queen of Scotland, who 

 lived about the time that Baptifta wrote. His ftature, as marked upon 

 a pillar of the Abbay Church of Holyroodhoufe that is now fallen, 

 was feven feet eight inches ; and yet none of the co-temporary au- 

 thors, who mention him, fpeak of him as a man of gigantic or ex- 

 traordinary ftature, but only fay that he was a fine perfon of a 

 man, and performed his exercifes very well. From whence I infer, 

 that there were, at tha^ time, in Scotland, many men of rank and 

 birth, of equal, if not fuperior fize. And, much later than the 



, days 



* Lib. iv. Page 211. 



