401 
LEWIS HOPKINS, AND JOHN GOAN, DWARFS. 
the accidental original have been forgotten, tnere would be the same 
objections against their being, derived from the same common stock 
with others. It must therefore be admitted possible, that the differ- 
ences now subsisting between one part of mankind and another 
fnay have been produced by some such accidental cause, long after 
the earth had been peopled by one common progenitor.’" 
Lewis Hopkins, and John Coan, Dwarfs. 
The following account of Hopkins is contained in a letter from John 
Browning, Esq. of Barton-hill, near Bristol, to Mr. Henry Baker, 
F.R.S. dated September 12, 1751. I am just returned,” says the 
writer, from Bristol, where I have seen an extraordinary young man, 
whose case is very surprising : he is shewn publicly for money, and 
therefore I send you the printed bill which is given about to bring 
company, and also a true copy of a certificate from the minister of 
the parish where he was baptized, together with the attestation of 
several of the neighbours, of great credit and veracity, some of whom 
are personally known to me; to these I have likewise added my own 
observations, as necessary to clear up the case. The certificate is as 
ibllows : — - 
“ This is to certify, that Lewis Hopkins, the bearer hereof, is a 
man of a very honest character, and has six children. His second 
son, Hopkins, whom you see now with him, is, in the fifteenth year of 
his age, not exceeding two feet seven inches in height, and about 
twelve or thirteen pounds weight, wonderful to the sight of all be- 
holders : the said little man was baptized the 29th of January, 1796, 
by me, — R. Harris, Vicar of Llantrissent, Glamorganshire/’ 
“The above is signed also by eight gentlemen of figure and fortune 
in the county of Glamorgan. 
“ I went myself,” says Mr. Browning, “ to view and examine this 
very extraordinary, and surprising but melancholy, subject ; a lad 
entering the fifteenth year of his age, whose stature is no more than 
two feet seven inches, and weight thirteen pounds, labouring under 
all the miseries and calamities of old age, beingvveak and emaciated, 
his eyes dim, his hearing very bad, his countenance fallen, his voice 
very low and hollow ; his head hanging dowm before, so that his chin 
tenches his breast, consequently his shoulders are raised, and his 
back rounded not unlike a hump-back ; he is so weak, that be cannot 
stand without support. 
“His father and mother both told me that he was naturally sprightly 
though weak, and, until he was seven years old, would attempt to sing 
and play about, and then weighed nineteen pounds, and was as tall, 
if not taller, than at present, naturally straight, well-growm, and in 
due proportion ; but from that period he had gradually declined and 
grown weaker, losing his teeth by degrees, and is now reduced to the 
unhappy state I have just been describing. The mother is a very 
jolly healthy woman, in the prime of life ; the father enjoys the same 
blessing.’^ 
Another dwarf is thus described in the same work by William 
Arderon, F.R.S. “John Coan, a dwarf, was born at Twitshall in 
3 E 
