a lady of Clifton used to call him “the walking feather-bed.” At the court of Louis XV. there were two lusty noblemen, related to each other: the king, having rallied one of them on his corpulency, added, “I suppose you take little or no exercise?” “Your majesty will pardon me,” replied the bulky duke, “for I generally walk two or three times round my cousin every morning.”

Various ludicrous anecdotes are related of fat people. A scene between Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, two corpulent actresses, must have been very amusing. They were playing in the parts of Lady Easy and Edging, in the Careless Husband, when the former desires Edging to pick up a letter she had dropped; and Mrs. Clive, who might as well have attempted to raise a hundred pound weight, exclaimed, “Not I indeed, take it up yourself if you like it.” This answer threw the audience into roars of laughter, when Mrs. Pritchard replied, “Well, if you won’t take up the letter, I must find some one who will;” and so saying, she beckoned to a servant in the wing, who came forward and terminated the dispute.

In some countries, especially in the East, moderate obesity is considered a beauty, and Tunisene young ladies are regularly fattened for marriage; a different practice from that of the Roman matrons, who starved their daughters, to make them as lean as possible on such occasions. Thus Terence,

Erasmus states that the Gordii carried their admiration for corpulence to such an extent, that they raised the fattest amongst them to the throne. It is well known that the preposterous size of some of the Hottentots is deemed a perfection, and one of their Venuses was not long since exhibited in London.

There is no doubt that food materially influences this condition of mankind, although we frequently see enormous eaters who are miserably lean, and fat persons whose diet is most scanty. During the late war, a ravenous French prisoner was known to eat four pounds of raw cow-udder, ten pounds of raw beef, and two pounds of candles, per diem, diluting his meals with five quarts of porter; yet this carnivorous brute was a perfect skeleton.

Amongst the many predisposing causes of obesity we may rank emasculation. An epicurean fishmonger of the name of Samuel Tull performed this operation on fishes, to render them more delicate. His curious experiments were submitted to the Royal Society. The same practice has been subsequently illustrated by Professor Dumeril. Father Charleroix informs us that Caraib cannibals had recourse to this process to fatten their prisoners before they were devoured.

Anatomical pursuits are also known to occasion embonpoint. This has been frequently observed amongst medical pupils. Professor Mascagni attributed his corpulence to his constant attendance on dissections; he also excused his amorous propensities on similar grounds.

For the cure of corpulency, diminution of food of a nutritious nature has been generally recommended; added to this, little sleep and much exercise are advised. Acids to reduce fatness are frequently administered, but have done considerable mischief. Amongst other wonderful accounts of their efficacy in such cases, it is related of a Spanish general who was of an enormous size, that he drank vinegar until his bulk was so reduced that he could fold his skin round his body.

For a similar purpose soap has been frequently recommended, particularly by Dr. Flemyng. He began this experiment with one of his patients who weighed twenty stone and eleven pounds (jockey weight): in July 1754, he took every night a quarter of an ounce of common Castile soap. In August 1756 his bulk was reduced two stone, and in 1760 he was brought down to a proper condition.

Darwin is of opinion that salt and salted meat are still more efficacious than soap. All these experiments, however, are in general not only useless but pernicious, and frequently prove fatal. Mr. Wadd, from whose curious work on corpulence much is extracted in this article, properly observes that, “certain and permanent relief is only to be sought in rigid abstemiousness, and a strict and constant attention to diet and exercise.” Dr. Cheyne, who weighed thirty-two stone, reduced himself one-third, and enjoyed good health till the age of seventy-two. Numerous instances of the kind are mentioned, where journals of gradual reduction were kept: the following is an abstract of one of them, in the case of a person who, on the 17th June 1820, weighed twenty-three stone two pounds:—

In another case, attended by Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, the patient weighed twenty-three stone, and by a regular system of diet was brought down to fifteen stone. In this instance brown bread, with a certain quantity of bran in it, was employed; and it is well known that the alimentary secretions are materially altered by the quality of bread. The article of drink also requires much attention. Corpulent persons generally indulge to excess, and in this case, every endeavour to reduce them will be vain. We frequently see our jockeys reducing themselves to the extent of a stone and a half in the week. A lower scale of diet is by no means as injurious as it is generally supposed; the English prisoners made by Tippoo Saib, though kept upon a scanty pittance of bread and water, found themselves in better health than before, and some of them were cured during their captivity of liver complaints of long and severe duration.

One of the most corpulent persons known was Mr. Lambert, of Leicestershire, who weighed fifty-two stone eleven pounds (14 lbs. to the stone).

At Hainton, there died in 1816, Samuel Sugars, aged fifty-two; and his body, with a single coffin weighed fifty stone.

In 1754 died Mr. Jacob Powell, of Stebbing in Essex: his body was above five yards in circumference, and weighed five hundred and sixty pounds; requiring sixteen men to bear him to his grave.

In 1775 Mr. Spooner, of Skillington near Tamworth, weighed, a short time before his death, forty stone and nine pounds, and measured four feet three inches across the shoulders.

Keysler mentions a young man in Lincoln who ate eighteen pounds of beef daily, and died in 1724, in the twenty-eighth of his age, weighing five hundred and thirty pounds.

A baker, in Pye Corner, weighed thirty-four stone, and would frequently eat a small shoulder of mutton, baked in his oven, and weighing five pounds; he, however, persisted for one year to live upon water-gruel and brown bread, by which he lost two hundred pounds of his bulk.

Mr. Collet, master of the Evesham Academy, weighed upwards of twenty-six stone; when twelve years old, he was nearly as large as at the