this period, Jeffery was employed on a negociation of great importance: he was sent to France to fetch a midwife for the queen; and on his return with this gentlewoman, and her majesty's dancing-master, and many rich presents to the queen from her mother Mary de Medicis, he was taken by the Dunkirkers. Jeffery, thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so. He had borne with little temper the teazing of the courtiers and domestics, and had many squabbles with the king's gigantic porter. At last, being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family, a challenge ensued: and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous armed only with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged, that a real duel ensued; and the appointment being on horseback, with pistols, to put them more on a level, Jeffery, at the first fire, shot his antagonist dead. This happened in France, whither he had attended his mistress during the troubles. He was again taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and sold into Barbary. He probably did not remain long in slavery, for, at the beginning of the civil war, he was made a captain in the royal army; and in 1644, attended the queen to France, where he remained till the Restoration. At last, upon suspicion of his being privy to the Popish plot, he was taken up in 1682, and confined in the Gate-house of Westminster, where he ended his life in the sixty-third year of his age.

In the memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, a relation is given by the Count de Tressau, of a dwarf, called Bebe, kept by Štanislaus III. king of Poland; who died in 1764, aged twenty-three, when he measured only thirty-three inches. At his birth, he measured only between eight and nine inches. Diminutive as were his dimensions, his reasoning faculties were not less scanty; appearing indeed not to have been superior to those of a well-taught pointer: but, that the size and strength of the intellectual powers are not affected by the diminutiveness or tenuity of the corporeal organs, is evident from a still more striking instance of littleness, given us by the same nobleman, in the person of Monsieur Borulawski, a Polish gentleman, whom he saw at Luneville, whence he visited Paris, and who, at the age of twenty-two, measured only twenty-eight inches. This miniature of a man, considering him only as to his bodily dimensions, appears a giant with regard to his mental powers and attainments. He is described by the count as possessing all the graces of wit, united with a sound judgment and an excellent memory; so that we may with justice say of M. Borulawski, in the words of Seneca, and nearly in the order in which he has used them, "Posse ingenium, fortissimum ac beatissimum, sub quolibet corpusculo latere." Epist. 66. Count Borulawski was the son of a Polish nobleman atta hed to the

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fortunes of King Stanislaus, who lost his property in consequence of that attachment, and who had six children; threc dwarfs, and three well grown. What is singular enough, they were born alternately, a big one and a little one, though both parents were of the common size. The little count's youngest sister was much less than him, but died at the age of twentythree. The count continued to grow till he was about thirty, when he had attained the height of three feet two inches: he lived to see his fifty-first year. He never experienced any sickness, but lived in a polite and affluent manner, under the patronage of a lady, a friend of the family, till love, at the age of forty-one, intruded into his little peaceful bosom, and involved him in matrimony, care, and perplexity. The lady he chose was of his own country, but of French extraction, and the middle size. They had three children, all girls, and none of them likely to be dwarfs. To provide for a family now became an object big with difficulty, requiring all the exertion of his powers (which could promise but little) and his talents, of which music alone afforded any view of profit. He played extremely well upon the guitar; and by having concerts in several of the principal cities in Germany, he raised temporary supplies. At Vienna he was persuaded to turn his thoughts to England, where, it was believed, the public curiosity might in a little time benefit him sufficiently to enable him to live independent in so cheap a country as PoInd. He was furnished by very respectable friends with recommendations to several of the most distinguished characters in this kingdom, as the Duchess of Devonshire, Rutland, &c. whose kind patronage he was not backward to acknowledge. He was advised to let himself be seen as a curiosity, and the price of admission was fixed at a guinea. The number of his visitors, of course, was not very great. After a pretty long stay in London, he went to Bath and Bristol; visited Dublin, and some other parts of Ireland; whence he returned by way of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, to London. He also visited Edinburgh, and some other towns in Scotland. In every place he acquired a number of friends. In reality, the ease and politeness of his manners and address pleased no less than the diminutive yet elegant proportions of his figure, astonished those who visited him. His person was pleasing and graceful, and his look manly and noble He spoke French fluently, and English tolerably. He was remarkably lively and cheerful, though fitted for the most serious and rational conversation. Such was this wonderful little man—an object of curiosity really worthy the attention of the philosopher, he man of taste, and the anatomist. His life has been published, written by himself.

The following account of a singular nation of dwarfs, is taken from the Monthly Review for 1792, being Vol. 7, of the new series. The subject is a review of "A Voyage to Madagascar; by the Abbé Rochon." They are called THE KIMOS.

The Kimos are a nation of pigmies, said to inhabit the mountains in the interior part of the island of Madagascar, of whom tradition has long encouraged the belief:--but Flacourt, in the last century, treated the stories then in circulation with great contempt. The Abbé Rochon, however, has revived them; and has not only given them the sanction of his own belief, but that of M. Commerson, and of M. de Modave, the late Governor of Fort Dauphin. As their opinions are of weight, and as the subject is curious, we shall present our readers with an epitome of the memoirs which these gentlemen drew up concerning the Kimos, and which our author has inserted entire in the body of his work.

"Lovers of the marvellous, (says M. Commerson,) who would be sorry to have the pretended size of the Patagonian giants reduced to six feet, will perhaps be made some amends by a race of pigmies, who are wonderful in the contrary extreme. I mean those half men, who inhabit the interior part of the great island of Madagascar, and form a distinct nation, called, in the language of the country, Kimos. These little men are of a paler colour than the rest of the natives, who are in ge neral black. Their arms are so long, that when stretched out, they reach to the knees, without stooping. The women have scarcely breasts sufficient to mark their sex, except at the time of lying-in; and even then they are obliged to have recourse to cow's milk, to feed their children.

"The intellectual faculties of this diminutive race are equal to those of the other inhabitants of the island, who are by no means deficient in understanding, though extremely indolent. Indeed, the Kimos are said to be much more active and warlike, so that their courage being in a duplicate ratio of their size, they have never suffered themselves to be oppressed and subdued by their neighbours, who have often attempted it. It is astonishing, that all we know of this nation is from the neighbouring people; and that neither the governors of the Isle of France, of Bourbon, nor the commanders of our forts on the coast of Madagascar, have ever endeavoured to penetrate into this country. It has indeed been lately attempted, but without success.

"I shall however attest, as an eye-witness, that in a voyage which I made in 1770 to Fort Dauphin, M. de Modave, the last governor, gratified my curiosity, by shewing me, among his slaves, a female of the Kimos tribe, about thirty years of age, and three feet seven inches high. She was of a much

paler colour than any other natives of Madagascar that I ha seen, was well made, and did not appear misshapen, nor stinted in her growth, as accidental dwarfs usually are. Her arms were indeed too long, in proportion to her height, and her hair was short and woolly: but her countenance was good, and rather resembled that of an European than an African. She had a natural habitual smile on her face, was good-humoured, and seemed, by her behaviour, to possess a good understanding. No appearance of breasts was observable, except nipples: but this single instance is not sufficient to establish an exception so contrary to the general law of nature. A little before our departure from Madagascar, the desire of recovering her liberty, joined to the fear of being carried into France, stimulated this little slave to run away into the woods.

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On the whole, I conclude, in firmly believing the existence of this diminutive race of human beings, who have a character and manners peculiar to themselves. The Laplanders seem to be the medium between men of the common size and these dwarfs. Both inhabit the coldest countries and the highest mountains upon the earth. These of Madagascar, on which the Kimos reside, are sixteen or seventeen hundred toises, or fathoms, above the level of the sea. The plants and vegetables which grow on these heights, are naturally dwarfs."

M. de Modave says, "When I arrived at Fort Dauphin, in 1768, I had a memoir put into my hands, which was ill drawn up, giving an account of a pigmy race of people, called Kimos, who inhabit the middle region of Madagascar, in latitude 22°. I tried to verify the fact, by preparing for an expedition into the country which is said to be thus inhabited but by the infidelity and cowardice of the guides, my scheme failed. Yet I had such indisputable information of this extraordinary fact, that I have not the least doubt of the existence of such a nation. The common size of the men is three feet five inches. They wear long round beards. The women are some inches shorter than the men, who are thick and stout. Their colour is less black and swarthy than that of the natives; their hair is short and cottony. They forge iron and steel, of which they make their lances and darts; the only weapons that they use. The situation of their country is about sixty leagues to the north-west of Fort Dauphin. I procured a female of this nation, but she was said to be much taller than usual among the Kimos, for she was three feet seven inches in height. She was very thin, and had no more appearance of breasts than the leanest man."

To these relations, the Abbé Rochon says, he might add that of an officer who had procured a Kimos man, and would have brow at him to Europe, but M. de Surville, who commanded

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the vessel in which he was to embark, refused to grant his permission.

Respectable historians have presented us with the following curious account of the ABDERITES, or INHABITANTS OF ABDERA.

It is reported, that in the reign of Cassander, king of Macedon, they were so pestered with frogs and rats, that they were obliged to desert their city for some time: and Lucian tells us, that in the reign of Lysimachus, they were for some months afflicted with a fever of a most extraordinary nature, whose crisis was always on the seventh day, and then it left them; but it so distracted their imaginations, that they fancied themselves players. After this, they were ever repeating verses from some tragedy, and particularly out of the Andromeda of Euripides, as if they had been upon the stage; so that many of these pale, meagre actors, were pouring forth tragic exclamations in every street. This delirium continued till the winter following; which was a very cold one, and therefore fitter to remove it. Lucian, who has described this disease, endeavours to account for it in this way:- Archelaus, an excellent player, acted the Andromeda of Euripides before the Abderites, in the height of a very hot summer. Several had a fever at their coming out of the theatre, and as their imaginations were full of the tragedy, the delirium, which the fever raised, perpetually represented Andromeda, Perseus, Medusa, &c. and the several dramatic incidents, and called up the ideas of those objects, and the pleasure of the representation, so strongly, that they could not forbear imitating Archelaus' action and declamation: and from these the fever spread to others by infection.

A most respectable writer (Madame De Genlis) has giver us the following curious account of a COUNTRY, THE IN HABITANTS OF WHICH RESIDE IN TREES.

A young Spanish adventurer, of the name of Vasco Nugnez, whom a handsome figure, united to a natural wit and courage, advanced to the highest eminence of glory and fortune; pursuing his researches over the Darien, a region abounding in lakes and marshes, arrived in a country where the houses were of a very singular contrivance, being built in the largest trees, the branches of which enveloped the sides, and formed the roof. They contained chambers and closets of a tolerable construction. Each family was separately lodged. Every house had two ladders, one of which reached from the foot to the middle of the tree, and the other from thence to the entrance of the highest chamber: they were composed of cane, and so light as to be easily lifted up, which was done every