The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-29 00:00:00

LITTLE GREAT MEN.

For the consolation of those (no smal.
number) who not content with being great in
intellect, would wish, like Madame de Steel, to
be equally imposing in person, we subjoin a
list of worthieS;distinguished both in ancient and
modern times, as much by their powers of mind,
as the singular diminitive insignificance of their
" outer man." The catalogue is far from com-
plete, being, in fact, the mere hasty recollections
of the moment. If, however, the reader will be
at the trouble of adding his own reminiscences,
it may be swollen (like the Solway river just at
present) to a " pretty considerable" extent.
In the earlier periods of history, we find the
names of Alexander the Great—too well known
to be here further alluded to—Tyrtceus, a
pedagogue and poet ; lEsop, famous for his
dorsal exuberance ; Agesilaus, King of Sparta,
who persisted in wearing old clothes ; Tydeus,
one of the first of the Homeric heroes ; Horace,
the mere recollection of whose genius lends such
relish to a glass of good wine, or the social
chit-chat of a fire side ; Augustus, a heartless
hypocrite; Julian the Apostate, one of Gibbon's
favourite heroes,who died so chivalrously in Persia ;
Attila, King of the Huns, a low and swarthy
Calmuck ; Stilicho, the Roman Genera], im-
mortalized by the
,genius of Claudian ; Narses,
the eunuch, who, notwithstanding this accident,
more than rivalled Belisarus ; John Zimisces,
the Armenian Emperor of Constantinople, the
" soul of a hero" pent up in the frame of a
pigmy ; John Commenus, or Kalo Johannes, as
he was ironically called, famous for abolishing
the penalty of death throughout the East, during
a reign at Byzantium of twenty-five years ; Peter
the Hermit, the well known cause of the cru-
sading influenza ; Barlaam, the Byzantine monk,
a man praised by Petrarch and Boccace ; Hip-
ponax, the satiric poet ; Peter Aretene, the pro-
fligate Florentine satirist, of whom kings stood
in awe ; Montaigne, the most amusing and
philosophical of egotists, whose very conceit pos-
sesses an indescribable charm ; Scarron, the
French wit (a man awfully ugly); Richard III.;
and Lord Keeper North, whose nerves were so
much annoyed by the report, that he had ridden
a rhinoceros.

Coming down to a more modern period we
have the Marquis of Montrose, whom Scott has
familiarised to our minds ; Lord Peterborough,
a hero standing five foot four inches in his shoes;
Pope, famous for taking three glasses out of a
pint of wine, and requesting his friends to help
themselves freely to the remainder—also for his
stately termination of the Dunciad ; Frederick
the Great of Prussia, notorious for his Grena-
diers and his suppers ; Garrick, whose hawk's
eye petrified a butcher in the sixth row of the
pit ; Bishop Horseley, an able controversialist ;
Paley, the wittiest of Divines, who could dispatch
a leg of mutton at a meal ; Suwarrow, who took
longer to change his linen than to overrun Poland ;
Hoffman, the German romance writer, who
seldom passed two nights in the wee!: without
dreaming of the devil (vide " Foreign Quarterly
Review") ; Colman, the translator of " Terence ;
Talleyrand, the most adroit and amorous of
statesmen ; Fouquier Tainville, the friend of
Robespierre ; Ceracci, the sculptor, and apostle
of liberty, who engraved Washington's bust, and
always wore two watches ; Mavrocordato, whose
latitude, we hear, exceeds his longitude ; Wil-
berforce, whom Sheridan so humorously repre-
sented at the watch-house; Dr. Herbert Marsh, a
noted divinity scholar ; Curran, who was too
witty to make a good Master of the Rolls ; the
bdiudtlyhiignh-tmheindeeadst
e;otCh.oslidaasmt b; e
Barry
Wellesley, whose sun rose so splen-
,oramqvaulal,inat
(aErrlyiaC)
pretty lady's poet ; BuonaP arte' the grandest
of heroes; Ali Paella; Thomas Moore,
one
of the most variously gifted of mod ern writers ;
Godwin, famous for tellina his
only j good story
of a day spent at John Jemble's, in company
with Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Inehbald, Sheridan,
and Curran, when the discourse turned on,love—
also for his masterly analytical tales of " Caleb
Williams" and " Saint Leon" ; Messrs. Jef-
frey and Gifford, the rival critics of their day ;
" little Quick," the favourite comedian of
George 111. ; Knight, the most arch and gifted
of rustic actors ; Edmund Kean, whose star, we
fear, is low in the ascendant ; and lastly, Richard
Sheill, the showy Irish orator and dramatist. if
permitted to exalt " Blues" to the dignity and
•
privilege of manhood, we may then add to this
imperfect catalog
-e the names of Mrs. Radcliffe,
whose portrait of the " Monk Schedoni," and
" Description of Venice," are alone sufficient to
immortalize her ; Lady Morgan, a politician in
petticoats ; and Miss Edgeworth, whose tale of
the " Absentee" has procured her so many ad-
mirers. The above philosophers, wits, heroes,
and actors, have been all more or less distin-
guished by their diminutive appearance ; the list,
as we said before, might be infinitely extended,
but quite enough has been shown to keep in
countenance eves the least and most insignifi-
cant in person among our modern great men.
The line of learning is seldom the line of beauty.

There never was a larger supply of the nzisle-
toe bush than there is this year. In Herefordshire,
in particular,
en
psaerticular, the boughs of old apple trees (on
which this curious bush grows) are covered with
it. Upwards of twelve misletoe bushes are to
perched as it were in some of the trees,
and many of them of very large size.