116 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Whether he had taken the giant’s altitude by his shadow, as geometricians were
wont to measure steeples,’ or had recourse to the less scientific assistance of
chairs and stools, we know not; but to this day the secret has never been disclosed.
From what the taciturn tailor inadvertently disclosed, it appeared that
the great man was much tickled by the process, as he jocularly said to his little
friend-“ You and I may yet grace the windows of the print-shops.” O’Brien
was not far wrong in his conjecture ; and he perhaps spoke from some knowledge
he had of the caricaturist. Kay endeavoured by every means to catch a
likeness of the foreman. He sent for him to various “houffs” to coax him
with strong drink, but the important little man had no notion of being handed
down to posterity j and, the more securely to conceal his precious person, he
constantly kept a screen on the shop window, that the artist might not espy
him at the board. Thus defeated in his endeavours to catch the real “Simon
Pure,” the artist conferred the honour on Convener Ranken, who, opportunely
enough, had rendered himself somewhat conspicuous in city matters.
AIR. PATRICK COTTER O’BRIEN-“ the wonder of the age,” and one
of the tallest men seen in Scotland since the days of Dunnnm, in the somewhat
fabulous reign of Eugene II., who measured eleven feet and a half-was born
at Kinsale in 1760. Of his history little more is known than that he travelled
the country for many years, exhibiting himself to all who chose to gratify their
curiosity at a trifling expense. He was eight feet one inch in height, and
weighed five hundredweight ; but, judging from the portraiture, he appears to
have been deficient in symmetry.’ “This man,” says a notice in an old
magazine, “when he first began to derive a subsistence from an exposure of his
person to the public, was deeply affected by a sense of humiliation ; and often
shed tears when, among the crowd whom curiosity attracted, any spectator
treated him with respect. In time, however, all these tender feelings were
entirely subdued ; and he was latterly as much distinguished for his pride as he
was before for modesty. Such transitions, however,” concludes the notice, ‘‘ are
not uncommon in great men.” As an instance of his capricious temper, it is said
that when the tailor went home with his greatcoat, the giant found innumerable
faults with it-“By St. Patrick it wasn’t a coat at all, at all, at all !” The
little foreman, much discomfited, was in the act of retiring with “ the greatcoat
under his arm,” when O’Brien’s servant, tapping him gently on the shoulder,
gave a word of consolation. “ Och, botheration, I see ye arn’t up to the great
man. Just keep the coat beside you till I let you know when he is in good
1 In that strange collection of advertisements preserved by Captain Grose, in his “Guide to
Health, Wealth, Riches, and Honour,” London, 8v0, a tailor announces the important fact that he
makes breeches by geometry I Perhaps O’Brien’s schemer may have studied under this scientific
artificer.
An eye-witness thus describes his appearance :-“ He was in fact a perfect excrescence. His
hand was precisely like a shoulder of mutton. He had double knuckles-prodigious lumps at his
hip bones-and when he rose off the table, on which he always sat, his bones were distinctly heard
as if crashing against one another. To support himself, he always placed the top of the door under
his oxtel. [arm-pit].”
