ANIMALS. 105 



at one time furnished with a dwarf, a giant, and 

 a jester : these the King often took a pleasure in 

 opposing to each other, and often fomented quar- 

 rels among them, in order to be a concealed spec- 

 tator of their animosity. It was a particular en- 

 tertainment of the courtiers at that time, to see 

 little Jeffery, for so the dwarf was called, ride 

 round the lists, expecting his antagonist, and dis- 

 covering in his actions all the marks of contemp- 

 tible resolution. 



It was in the same spirit that Peter of Russia, 

 in the year 1710, celebrated a marriage of dwarfs. 

 This monarch, though raised by his native genius 

 far above a barbarian, was nevertheless still many 

 degrees removed from actual refinement. His 

 pleasures, therefore, were of the vulgar kind ; and 

 this was among the number. Upon a certain day, 

 which he had ordered to be proclaimed several 

 months before, he invited the whole body of his 

 courtiers, and all the foreign ambassadors, to be 

 present at the marriage of a pigmy man and wo- 

 man. The preparations for this wedding were 

 not only very grand, but executed in a style of 

 barbarous ridicule. He ordered that all the dwarf 

 men and women within two hundred miles should 

 repair to the capital, and also insisted that they 

 should be present at the ceremony. For this pur- 

 pose he supplied them with proper vehicles j but 

 so contrived it, that one horse was seen carrying 

 in a dozen of them into the city at once, while the 

 mob followed shouting and laughing from behind. 

 Some of them were at first unwilling to obey an 

 order which they knew was calculated to turn 



