Z'j6 A HISTORY OF 



fifteen inches high ; and his whole body weighed but thirteen pounds. 

 Notwithstanding this, he was well proportioned, and handsome ; his 

 health was good, but his understanding scarce passed the bounds of 

 instinct. It was at that time that the king of Poland, having heard ol 

 such a curiosity, had him conveyed to Lunenville, gave him the name 

 of Baby, and kept him in his palace. 



Baby, having thus quitted the hard condition of a peasant to enjoy 

 all the comforts and conveniences of life, seemed to receive no 

 alteration from his new way of living, either in mind or person. He 

 preserved the goodness of his constitution till about the age of sixteen, 

 but his body seemed to increase very slowly during the whole time ; 

 and his stupidity was such, that all instructions were lost in improving 

 his understanding. He could never be brought to have any sense of 

 religion, nor even to shew the least signs of a reasoning faculty 

 They attempted to teach him dancing and music, but in vain ; he 

 never could make any thing of music ; and as for dancing, although 

 he beat time tolerably exact, yet he could never remember the 

 figure, but while his dancing-master stood by to direct his motions. 

 Notwithstanding, a mind thus destitute of understanding was not 

 \\ithoutitspassions; anger and jealousy harassed it at times ; nor 

 was he without desires of another nature. 



At the age of sixteen, Baby was twenty-nine inches tall ; at this 

 he rested ; but having thus arrived at his acme, the alterations of 

 puberty, or rather, perhaps, of old age, came fast upon him. From 

 being very beautiful, the poor little creature now became quite de- 

 formed ; his strength quite forsook him ; his back-bone began to 

 bend ; his head hung forward ; his legs grew weak ; one of his shoul- 

 ders turned awry ; and his nose grew disproportionably large. With 

 his strength, his natural spirits also forsook him ; and, by the time 

 he was twenty, he was grown feeble, decrepit, and marked with the 

 strongest impressions of old age. It had been before remarked by 

 some, that he would die of old age before he arrived at thirty ; and, 

 in fact, by the time he was twenty-two, he could scarcely walk a 

 hundred paces, being worn with the multiplicity of his years, and 

 bent under the burden of protracted life. In this year he died ; a 

 cold, attended with a slight fever, threw him into a kind of lethargy, 

 "liich had a few momentary intervals ; but he could scarce be brought 

 ^peak. However, it is asserted, that in the five last years of his 

 life, he shewed a clearer understanding, than in his times of best 

 health : but at length he died, after enduring great agonies, in the 

 twenty-second year of his age. 



Opposite to this accidental diminution of the human race, is that 

 of its extraordinary magnitude. Concerning the reality of a nation 

 of Giants, there have been many disputes among the learned. Some 

 have affirmed the probability of such a race ; and others, as warmly 

 have denied the possibility of their existence. But it is not from any 

 speculative reasonings, upon a subject of this kind, that information 

 is to be obtained ; it is not from the disputes of the scholar, but the 

 labours of the enterprising, that we are to be instructed in this in 

 quiry. Indeed, nothing can be more absurd, than what some learned 

 nifp have advanced unon ihi<s sub'ect. It is very unlikely, sayj 



