192 



A HISTORY OF 



of great strength; and, no doubt, they must be 

 very different from those accidental giants that 

 are to be seen in different parts of Europe. 

 Stature, with these, seems rather their infirmity 

 than their pride ; and adds to their burden, 

 without increasing their strength. Of those 

 I have seen, the generality were ill formed 

 and unhealthful ; weak in their persons, or 

 incapable of exerting what strength they were jj 

 possessed of. The same defects of understand- 

 ing that attended those of suppressed stature, 

 were found in those who were thus overgrown : 

 they were heavy, phlegmatic, stupid, and in- 

 clined to sadness. Their numbers, however, 

 are but few ; and it is thus kindly ordered by 

 Providence, that as the middle stature is the 

 best fitted for happiness, so the middle ranks 

 of mankind are produced in the greatest 

 variety. 



However, mankind seems naturally to have 

 a respect for men of extraordinary stature ; and 

 it has been a supposition of long standing, that 

 our ancestors were much taller, as well as much 

 more beautiful, than we. This has been, in- 

 deed, a theme of poetical declamation from 

 the beginning ; and man was scarcely formed, 

 when he began to deplore an imaginary decay. 

 Nothing is more natural than this progress of 

 the mind, in looking up to antiquity with reve- 

 rential wonder. Having been accustomed to 

 compare the wisdom of our fathers with our 

 own, in early imbecility, the impression of their 

 superiority remains when they no longer exist, 

 and when we cease to be inferior. Thus the 

 men of every age consider the past as wiser 

 than the present ; and the reverence seems to 

 accumulate as our imaginations ascend. For 

 this reason, we allow remote antiquity many 

 advantages, without disputing their title : the 

 inhabitants of uncivilized countries represent 

 them as taller and stronger ; and the people of 

 a more polished nation, as more healthy and 

 more wise. Nevertheless, these attributes seem 

 to be only the prejudices of ingenuous minds; 

 a kind of gratitude, which we hope in turn to 

 receive from posterity. The ordinary stature 

 of men, Mr. Derham observes, is, in all pro- 

 bability, the same now as at the beginning. 

 The oldest measure we have of the human 



figure, is in the monument of Cheops, in the 

 first pyramid of Egypt. This must have sub- 

 sisted many hundred years before the times of 

 Homer, who is the first that deplores the decay. 

 This monument, hoivcver, scarcely exceeds 

 the measure of our ordinary coffins : the cavity 

 is no more than six feet long, two feet wide, 

 and deep in about the same proportion. Several 

 mummies also, of a very early age, are found 

 to be only of the ordinary stature ; and show 

 that, for these three thousand years at least, 

 men have not suffered the least diminution. 

 We have many corroborating proofs of this, in 

 the ancient pieces of armour which are dug up 

 in different parts of Europe. The brass hel- 

 met dug up at Medauro, fits one of our men, 

 and yet is allowed to have been left there at the 

 overthrow of Asdrubal. Some of our finest 

 antique statues, which we learn from Pliny and 

 others to be exactly as big as the life, still 

 continue to this day, remaining monuments of 

 the superior excellence of their workmen indeed, 

 but not of the superiority of their stature. We 

 may conclude, therefore, that men have been 

 in all ages pretty much of the same size they 

 are at present; and that the only difference 

 must have been accidental, or perhaps na- 

 tional. 



As to the superior beauty of our ancestors, 

 it is not easy to make the comparison : beauty 

 seems a very uncertain charm ; and frequently 

 is less in the object, than in the eye of the be- 

 holder. Were a modern lady's face formed 

 exactly like the Venus of Medicis, or the Sleep- 

 ing Vestal, she would scarcely be considered 

 beautiful, except by the lovers of antiquity, 

 whom of all her admirers perhaps she would 

 be least desirous of pleasing. It is true, that 

 we have some disorders among us that disfigure 

 the features, and from which the ancients were 

 exempt ; but it is equally true, that we want 

 some which were common among them, and 

 which were equally deforming. As for their 

 intellectual powers, these also were probably the 

 same as ours : we excel them in the sciences, 

 which may be considered as a history of ac- 

 cumulated experience ; and they excel us in the 

 poetic arts, as they had the first rifling of all 

 the striking images of Nature. 



