ANIMALS. 255 



settled, dancing followed the dinner, and the ball wis opened with a 

 minuet by the bridegroom, who measured exactly three feet two 

 inches high. In the end, matters were so contrived, that this little 

 company, who met together in gloomy pride, and unwilling to by 

 pleased, being at last familiarized to laughter, joined in the diver- 

 sion, and became, as the journalist has it,* extremely sprightly and 

 entertaining. 



But whatever may be the entertainment such guests might afford 

 when united, I never found a dwarf capable of affording any when 

 alone. I have sometimes conversed with some of these that were ex- 

 hibited at our fairs about town, and have ever found their intellects 

 as contracted as their persons. They, in general, seemed to me to 

 have faculties very much resembling those of children, and their 

 desires likewise of the same kind ; being diverted with the same 

 sports, and best pleased with such companions. Of all those I have 

 seen, which may amount to five or six, the little man, whose name 

 was Coan, that died lately at Chelsea, was the most intelligent and 

 sprightly. I have heard him and the giant, who sung at the theatres, 

 sustain a very ridiculous duet, to which they were taught to give 

 great spirit. But this mirth, and seeming sagacity, were but assumed. 

 He had, by long habit, been taught to look cheerful upon the ap- 

 proach of company ; and his conversation was but the mere etiquette 

 of a person that had been used to receive visitors. When driven out 

 of his walk, nothing could be more stupid or ignorant, notliing more 

 dejected or forlorn. But we have a complete history of a -dwarf, very 

 accurately related by Mr. Daubenton, in his part of the Histoire 

 Naturelle ; which I will here take leave to translate. 



This dwarf, whose name was Baby, was well known, having spent 

 the greatest part of his life at Lunenville, in the palace of Stanislaus, 

 the titular king of Poland. He was born near the village of Plaisne, 

 in France, in the year 1741. His father and mother were peasants, 

 both of good constitutions, and inured to a life of husbandry and la- 

 bour. Baby, when born, weighed but a pound and a quarter. We 

 are not informed of the dimensions of his body at that time ; but we 

 may conjecture they were very small, as he was presented on a plate 

 to be baptized, and for a long time lay in a slipper. His mouth, 

 although proportioned to the rest of his body, was not, at that time, 

 large enough to take in the nipple; and he was, therefore, obliged to 

 be suckled by a she-goat that was in the house; and that served as a 

 nurse, attending to his cries with a kind of maternal fondness. He 

 began to articulate some words when eighteen months old ; and at 

 two years he was able to walk alone. He was then fitted with shoes 

 that were about an inch and a half long. He was attacked with se- 

 veral acute disorders ; but the small-pox was the only one which left 

 any marks behind it. Until he was six years old, he eat no other 

 food but pulse, potatoes, and bacon. His father and mother were, 

 from their poverty, incapable of affording him any better nourish- 

 ment ; and his education was little better than his food, being bred 

 up among the rustics of the place. At six years old he was about 



* Die dench wurdige. Iwerg. Hockweit, &c. Lipsiae, 1713, vol. viii. page 102. seq 



