,
of this half-limbed giant. Few but must have noticed him; for the
accident, which brought him low, took place during the riots of 1780,
and he has been a groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus,
and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he neighboured. He
was a grand fragment; as good as an Elgin marble. The nature, which
should have recruited his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only
retired into his upper parts, and he was half a Hercules. I heard a
tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake,
and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that
had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his
just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was
as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been
cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could
have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left
him. The _os sublime_ was not wanting; and he threw out yet a jolly
countenance upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this
out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the service,
but his good spirits no way impaired, because he is not content to
exchange his free air and exercise for the restraints of a poor-house,
he is expiating his contumacy in one of those houses (ironically
christened) of Correction.

Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance, which called
for legal interference to remove? or not rather a salutary and a
touching object, to the passers-by in a great city? Among her shows,
her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but
an accumulation of sights--endless sights--_is_ a great city; or for
what else is it desirable?) was there not room for one _Lusus_ (not
_Naturae_, indeed, but) _Accidentium_? What if in forty-and-two years'
going about, the man had scraped together enough to give a portion
to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds--whom had he
injured?--whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their
_sight_ for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the
heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven--shuffling his ungainly
trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion--he was enabled to
retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over
a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought
against him by a clergyman deposing bef