THE GLEANER. No. CI. Τυδευς, μικρόν δέμας, αλλα μακητης. HOMER. Tydeus, of person small! what then? COLMAN NOTWITHSTANDING the eminent advantages resulting from the many rare talents and qualities necessarily included in the illustrious character of a genius, I am, I must confess, neither the most completely happy, nor the most universally accomplished man in the creation. Nature, who has in some instances been lavish in her bounties to me, has in others been rather too unkind, and, indeed, remarkably niggard of her favours. Vanity, for example, she has so exuberantly poured upon me, that my portion, to say no more of it, is at least sufficient to em bolden me to venture forth as an author; and my sensibility is, at the same time, unfortunately so nice and exquisite, that it becomes a perpetual thorn in the sides of that very vanity, laying it open to every slight attack, and rendering it too easily wounded by the petulance of folly, the slanders of envy, the gross jests of buffoonery, or the malice of a review. But the greatest drawback, which nature has, in my case, made on that vanity and self-applause which contributes more or less to the happiness of every man and woman in the world, is most unfortunately external; visible to all eyes, open to general observation, and liable to ridicule from the dullest fellow that casts a look upon my person. Peculiarities of figure, whether in make, size, or complexion, have always been deemed an inexhaustible source of ridicule to the associates of the man who possesses possesses them. He, whose person is remarkable, seems to be considered as a butt planted by nature, for all other men to shoot their wit at. The coarse humour of our own vulgar, however blind to mental blemishes, is sharp-sighted as a lynx to external defects, and exerts itself as liberally on genteeler passers-by, as on their own humpbacked companions, whom they jocularly entitle, my lord." Homer represents the gods them selves as laughing at the ugly, awkward, blacksmith divinity of Vulcan. Tully, in his dialogues de Oratore, recommends it to an orator to be pleasant and facetious on personal defects, though perhaps rather unadvisedly, and unsuitably to the grave dignity of that profession: and, now we are got so deep in learned quotations, I defy the scholar to find in Lucian, Aristophanes, Theophrastus, or any other author, ancient or modern, a greater profusion of wit and humour bestowed on any one subject, than Shakspeare has lavished, in his several descriptions of Falstaff, Shallow, and Bardolph, on a fat man, a lean man, and a man with a red nose. Happy, indeed, would it be for any other man (especially if he be a wit and a genius) who bears about in his person this native fund of pleasantry, if he could say with Falstaff, and with equal justice too," I am not only witty myself, but also the cause of wit in other men." Let not, however, the partial reader conclude too hastily from what has been said, that I pretend to the honour of the deformity of Scarron, the crookedness of Pope, the blindness of Milton or Homer, or even the long nose, or no nose, of Tristram Shandy. Not to make any further delay of introduction, after having so long announced myself to the good company, the г ; truth, and the whole truth, is, that I am of a remarkable low stature; a sort of diminutive plaything of Madam Nature, that seems to have been made, like a girl's doll, to divert the good lady in her infancy; a little without a tittle o'top; an human figure in miniature; a make-weight in the scale of mortality; a minim of nature a mannikin, not to say minnikin; and, indeed, rather an abstract or brief chronicle of man's fair proportions, than a man at large. My person, indeed, is not formed in that excellent mould of littleness, which, as in some insects and animals, become beautiful from the nice texture and curious composition of its parts. I may be seen, it is true, without the help of a microscope, and am not even qualified to rival the dwarf Coan, by being exhibited to my worthy countrymen at sixpence a-piece. I am, however, so low in stature, that my name is never mentioned without the epithet "little" being prefixed to it; the moment that my person presents itself among strange company, the first idea that strikes the beholders is the minuteness of the figure, and a whisper instantly buzzes round the room, "Lord, what a little creature!" As I walk along the street, I hear the men and women say to one another," There goes a little man!" In a word, it is my irreparable misfor tune to be, without my shoes, little more than five feet in height. Eating of daisy-roots, we are told, will retard a man's growth; if the French alimentary powder, or any other newinvented diet, would at once elevate me, and surprise my friends, I would go through a regimen to be raised ever so little nearer heaven. I think I could not endure to have my limbs stretched to a nobler length in the bed of Procrustes; but, if I could be rolled out like dough or paste, or extended by relaxation, like a rope or an eel's skin in dry weather, I believe I should readily assent to it: for there is no impossibility existing in nature, or recorded in Scripture, at the truth of which I am more apt to repine, than that no man is able to add a cubit to his stature. When the camel applied to heaven for some amendment in his figure, Jupiter (says the fabulist) cropped his ears for his impertinence. I should be very loth, like some of my cotemporaries of the quill, by any means to endanger my ears; and yet nothing but the back of the camel being placed on my little body, could make me wish more ardently, than I do at present, for an happy alteration in it. For, not to mention the natural inconveniences of being trampled on and run over in a crowd, almost pressed to death by huge fellows and fat old women in machines |