114 



Parre and Henry Jenkins complcated double that 

 usual term of life, so \ve have no reason to question 

 that some have doubled the common stature of man* 

 Waiter Parsons, King James the First's porter, was 

 full seven feet, seven inches high. Mr. Hay saw a 

 man at Bruges, who was eight feet and a half ; all 

 his limbs well shaped, and his strength proportion- 

 able. Becanus says he saw a youth almost nine feet 

 high ; a man near ten, and a woman quite ten feet, 

 Pliny mentions several -men of the same height in his 

 age. Yea, Theveuot tells us that he met a Spanish 

 merchant on the coast of Afric, who had in a colter 

 the skull and bones of an American giant, which 

 he brought with him from that country, who was 

 eleven feet, five inches in height, and died in the year 

 1559. 



From these warrantable accounts we learn thiit 

 there have been men 11 or 12 feet high, -which equals 

 if not exceeds, the stature of the tallest giant men. 

 tioned in scripture. The height of Goliah was but 

 six cubits and a span, which is only nine feet, nine 

 inches. Indeed the bedstead of Og, the king of Ha- 

 san is said to have been nine cubits in length. But 

 his bed must have been longer than his body ; we may 

 fairly allow nine inches above his head, and as mucit 

 below his feet. And making this deduction, he was 

 not above twelve feet high : much of the same stature 

 with tl e giant, whose forehead bone, is still kept in 

 the medicine-school at Ley den. 



Is this deviation from the common stature of maa- 

 by largeness, more remarkable than its opposite? The 

 deviation from it by littleness, which has been observ. 

 ed in some instances ? Such was the dwarf, who lived 

 for several years in the palace of the king of Poland. 

 His parents were healthy,strong peasants, w ho am'rmed r 

 that at his birth he weighed scarce a pound and a 

 quarter, that he was presented on a plats to be bap- 

 tized, and fora long time had a wooden shoe for his 

 bed. When 18 months old, he could speak somt? 

 words, when two years old, he., could walk .almost 



