leg 2 feet 8 inches. He was always strong and active, took much exercise from his childhood till the last two or three years of his life, when he became too unwieldy. He possessed great strength of muscles, could walk very well and nimbly, and could not only ride on horseback, but would sometimes gallop, even after he had attained the weight of between 4 and 5 hundred pounds. He used to go to London, a distance of forty miles, till the journey proved too fatiguing, and he relinquished the practice some years before he died. By this time he had grown to such a size as to excite the notice and wonder of all as he passed along the streets. In the last year or two, he could walk but a short distance, being soon tired and out of breath; travelling abroad but little, and that in a chaise.

Bright had always a good appetite, and when a youth, was rather remarkable in that particular. Though he continued to eat heartily and with a good relish after he grew up, yet he did not take a greater quantity of food than many other men who are said to

have good stomachs. As to his drink, though he did not take any liquor to an intoxicating degree, yet, upon the whole, he perhaps drank more than prudence would have dictated to a man of his excessively corpulent disposition. When a very young man, he was uncommonly fond of ale and strong beer, but for many years, his chief liquor was small beer, of which he usually drank a gallon a day. With respect to other liquors, he was extremely moderate, when alone, sometimes drinking half a pint of wine, or a little punch after dinner, and seldom exceeding this quantity; but when he was in company, he did not confine himself to so small an allowance.

For the greatest part of his life, Bright enjoyed a very good state of health. During the last three years, however, he was seized, more than once, with an inflammation in his leg, attended with a fever, and such a disposition to mortification, as to make it necessary to scarify the part. By this expedient, and by the aid of fomentation and bleeding, he was always soon relieved. Whenever he was bled, he was always ac

customed to have two pounds taken away at a time, and he was not more sensible of the loss of such a quantity than an ordinary maa is of twelve or fourteen ounces.

Bright married at the age of twenty-two; he lived in the conjugal state upwards of seven years, in which time he had five children born, and left his wife pregnant with the sixth. An amiable mind inhabited his overgrown body. He was of a cheerful temper, a kind husband, a tender father, a good master, a friendly neighbour, and an honest man; so that it cannot be surprising if he was unis versally beloved and respected.

His last illness, which lasted about a fortnight, was a miliary-fever. It began with strong inflammatory symptoms, a very troublesome cough, difficulty of breathing, and the eruption was extremely violent. For some days, he was thought to be relieved in the other symptoms by the eruption; but it cannot be matter of wonder that his constitution was not able to withstand a disease which proves fatal to many who appear much more fit to grapple with it. He died on the

10th of November, 1750, in the thirtieth of his age.

year

His body began to putrify very soon after death, notwithstanding the coolness of the weather, and the very next day became extremely offensive. The coffin was three feet six inches broad at the shoulders, and upwards of three feet in depth. A way was cut through the wall and stair-case to let it down into the shop. It was drawn to church on a low-wheeled carriage, by ten or twelve men, and was let down into the grave by an engine fixed up in the church for that purpose, amidst a vast concourse of spectators, not only from the town, but from the country for several miles round. After his death a wager was laid, that five men, twenty-one years of age, could be buttoned in his waistcoat. It was decided on the 1st of December, 1750, at the Black Bull, at Malden, when not only five men, as proposed, but seven men were enclosed in it, without breaking a stich, or straining a button.

Instances of a sudden and rapid increase

in bulk, not less extraordinary than that of Lambert, have likewise been observed in children and even infants. In the year 1780, a phenomenon of this kind was publicly exhibited in London, in the person of Thomas Aills Everitt, born in February, 1779. The child's father conducted a paper-mill by the side of Enfield Marsh, and was about thirtysix years of age; the mother about fortytwo, of a healthy habit; but neither of the parents were remarkable for size or stature. Thomas was their fifth child; the eldest of three living, in 1780, was twelve years old, and rather small of his age: but the paternal grandfather was a size larger than ordinary. They had another son of uncommon proportion, who died in January, 1774, at the age of fifteen months: Thomas was not remarkably large when born, but began when six weeks old, to grow apace, and attained a most extraordinary size.

The child was soon afterwards conveyed to the house of a relation in Great Turnstile, Holborn; but the confined situation had such