he grew more silent as his short life drew to a close.

In January, 1747, Mr. Dawkes found he
was ill of fever, and kindly sent him some
medicine. This the boy refused to take, and
his biographer heard nothing more of him till
June in the same year, when meeting Dr.
Heberdon, he was informed by him that the poor
lad was dying of consumption. He accordingly
went to see him. Two days afterwards, he
quietly breathed his last, having only grown
one inch in the preceding eight months. His
strong natural courage never deserted him,
and he viewed the approach of death with
perfectly undisturbed fortitude; though he disliked
to talk about it, as he did about most other
matters. Some months prior to this he rejoiced
in a thick pair of whiskers, and he had a beard.
Old age seemed to gather fast upon him towards
his end. His corpse had all the appearance,
grey hairs excepted, of a man who had died at
extreme old age: so the story told by Pliny of
a boy who at three years of age was four feet
high, and the story of the lad mentioned by
Craterus who married and died, leaving issue
in his seventh year, are not so profoundly
improbable after all. Mr. White, an eminent
surgeon recently dead, mentions a boy who used
to come to his house, who was three feet two
high when only two years and a half old, and
was built like a Farnese Hercules, and lifted
forty pounds with ease. M. Breschet showed
the phrenologist Spurzheim a boy who, at three
years of age, was three feet six and three-quarters.
Mr, South, the surgeon, had under
his care a boy who, at little more than three
years old, was three feet seven high, weighed
four stone eight pounds, and had a splendid
development of muscle.

In every instance this vast physical development
was purchased at the expense of all that
renders life precious—health, active energy,
intellect, duration of life, enjoyment of society,
and the hope of offspring. Even extraordinary
stoutness tends to produce similar results: with
an instance of which truth this paper shall
close.

Every English person has heard of Daniel
Lambert, but every English person does not
know that he possessed, except as regarded his
corpulence, one of the finest constitutions
possible, and that he was one of the most temperate
and active of men: yet he died apparently of
sheer exhaustion, at an early age. The only
disorder he ever suffered from was a slight attack
of inflammation, or feverishness, although, if he
got wet through, he would never change his
clothes, and when out boating, was often
drenched the whole night. Possibly his extreme
temperance contributed to his resistance of cold,
as he was a small and careful eater. He never
drank anything but water, though, being a fine
tenor singer and very fond of society, he was
exposed to great temptation. He slept less
than other men, and could always wake within
five minutes of any time he wished. He was
so active, that even when he had grown to be
a big man, he could kick to the height of seven
feet; and when thirty-two stone weight, he
walked from London to Woolwich with less
fatigue than several middle-aged men. In his
youth he was passionately fond of field-sports,
and always retained his taste for them. He was
a man of a peculiarly honourable, retiring,
and delicate mind. It was long before he could
bring himself to endure being stared at as a
show, and he always knew how to meet and repel
impertinent questions. He was chivalrously
brave, and on one occasion when two Savoyards
had loosened a bear upon a fine dog which
was barking at it, finding all his
remonstrances thrown away, he snatched a pole
out of the hand of one of the fellows, and
dealt the bear such a blow that he stunned
her. The dog got away, but, the bear turning
upon Lambert, the dog again attacked
it in the most gallant style. Lambert aimed
blow after blow, and, as he was in the flower
of his strength and could carry five
hundred-weight with ease, his blows must have
rather astonished the bear. Still the bear
pressed on, defending her head in the most
scientific style, and her antagonist having fallen
owing to the slippery state of the ground, she
was so close upon him that he felt the heat of her
breath. At this crisis he gave her a blow on
the skull with his fist which brought her to the
ground. She immediately took to flight: the
people tumbling over one another in heaps to
get out of the way, while a smaller bear, which
had been standing upright with a cocked-hat
on against a wall staring at the scene, no sooner
beheld the issue of the fray, than it took off its
hat and turned a somersault at Lambert's feet
in token of submission.

Lambert died without any visible disorder,
and quite suddenly, in his fortieth year. At that
time he weighed nearly fifty-three stone, being
almost eleven stone heavier than Mr. Bright,
of Maldon. Lambert was nine feet four round
the body, and three feet one round the leg; yet
so little inconvenience or oppression did his
immense bulk occasion him, that Dr. Heaviside said
his life was as good as that of any other man.
It was necessary to take down the wall and
window of the room in which he lay, to allow
his coffin to pass to the grave: towards which it
was rolled on cog-wheels. Mr. Bright might
have emulated Lambert had he not been less
temperate. The consequences of self-indulgence,
in his frame, were a disease in the legs,
which embittered and shortened his existence.

The Fourteenth Journey of
THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS,
Will appear in No. 72.