body, if he did not die during the process,
grew to be of the shape of the pot,
and, so far as the torso went, the order of
amateurs for a spherical dwarf, or an oval
dwarf, or an hexagonal dwarf, or a dwarf
with knobs on his chest, or an "egg-and-tongue"
pattern on his shoulders, could be
executed with promptitude and despatch.*
*Setting M. Hugo's wild myth of the Comprachicos
entirely on one side, most students of the social history
of England are aware that the custom of kidnapping
children (generally to be sold as slaves in the West
Indies or the American plantations) was frightfully
prevalent in this country in the seventeenth, and during
the early part of the eighteenth century, and that
Bristol was dishonourably distinguished as the port
whence the greater number of the hapless victims were
despatched beyond sea. And it is a very curious
circumstance, which appears to have been overlooked by
Lord Macaulay in his notice of Jeffries, that the
infamous judge, shortly before the Bloody Assize, went
down to Bristol, and delivered to the grand jury at the
assizes a most eloquent and indignant charge,
overflowing with sentiments of humanity, bearing on the
practice of kidnapping children for the plantations—a
practice which his lordship roundly accused the
corporation of Bristol of actively aiding and abetting for
their own advantage and gain. Jeffries' charge is
preserved in the library of the British Museum, and is as
edifying to read as the sentimental ballad What is Love?
by Mr. Thomas Paine, or as would be an Essay upon
Cruelty to Animals, with proposals for the suppression
thereof, by the late Emperor Nero.

But we have another informant, of
perhaps greater weight and authority, who has
told us in what manner dwarfs, and bandy,
and ricketty, and crooked-spined children
can be manufactured without the aid either
of the Comprachicos or of the Chinese
potters. The learned and amiable Cheselden
has dwelt minutely in his Anatomy on the
wickedly cruel and barbarous folly which
marked the system of nursing babies in his
time, and has shown how the practice of
tightly swaddling and unskilfully carrying
infants was calculated to cripple and deform
their limbs, and to stunt their growth. We
have grown wonderfully wiser since Cheselden's
time, although I have heard some
cynics mutter that the custom of growing
children in pipkins could not have been
more detrimental to health or to the
symmetry of the human form than is the
modern fashion of tight lacing.

Be all this as it may, I still hold
that the dwarf—well, the kind of dwarf
who can be seen for a penny at a fair—
continues, as the French say, "to make
himself desired." Surely his falling off
must be due to the surcease of the
manufacture. Old manufactured dwarfs are as
difficult to light upon as Mortlake tapestry
or Chelsea china, simply, I suppose,
because tapestry is no longer woven at
Mortlake, and Chelsea produces no more
porcelain ware. To an amateur of dwarfs
it is positively distressing to read the
numerous detailed accounts which the
historians have left us of bygone troglodytes.
Passing by such world-famous manikins
as Sir Jeffery Hudson and Count Borulawski,
where can one hope, in this degenerate
age, to light on a Madame Teresia,
better known by the designation of the
Corsican Fairy, who came to London in
1773, being then thirty years of age,
thirty-four-inches high, and weighing twenty-six
pounds? "She possessed much vivacity
and spirit, could speak Italian and French
with fluency, and gave the most inquisitive
mind an agreeable entertainment."
England has produced a rival to Madame
Teresia in Miss Anne Shepherd, who was
three feet ten inches in height, and was
married, in Charles the First's time, to
Richard Gibson, Esq., page of the
backstairs to his majesty, and a distinguished
miniature painter. Mr. Gibson was just
forty-six inches high, and he and his bride
were painted "in whole length" by Sir
Peter Lely. The little couple are said to
have had nine children, who all attained
the usual standard of mankind; and three
of the boys, according to the chronicles
of the backstairs, enlisted in the Life
Guards.

But what are even your Hudsons and
your Gibsons, your Corsican Fairies, and
your Anne Shepherds to the dwarfs of
antiquity? Where am I to look for a
parallel to the homunculus who flourished in
Egypt in the time of the Emperor
Theodosius, and who was so small of body that
he resembled a partridge, yet had all the
functions of a man, and would sing tuneably?
Mark Antony is said to have owned
a dwarf called Sisyphus, who was not of
the full height of two feet, and was yet of
a lively wit. Had this Sisyphus been
doomed to roll a stone it must surely have
been no bigger than a schoolboy's marble.
Ravisius—who was Ravisius?—narrates
that Augustus Caesar exhibited in his plays
one Lucius, a young man born of honest
parents, who was twenty-three inches
high, and weighed seventeen pounds; yet
had he a strong voice. In the time of
Jamblichus, also, lived Alypius of
Alexandria, a most excellent logician, and a
famous philosopher, but so small in body
that he hardly exceeded a cubit, or one
foot five inches and a half in height. And,
finally, Carden tells us—but who believes
Carden?—that he saw a man of full age in
Italy, not above a cubit high, and who was