Giving and receiving: essays and fantasies

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ...weighed in 1814, I can tell you the way to find out"--it was that casual remark which put me at last on the scent; and now I can supply devout Elians with the information that in 1814, when he was thirty-nine, their divinity turned the scale, in his boots, at 9 stone, S lb.; or almost a stone more than I was expecting after so much evidence as to his "immaterial" form. But his boots may have been very heavy. Having made the start I continued investigations, with the assistance of an analysis of the book which one of the partners has made. Keeping to literature I discovered that Lord Byron, whom we know to have been sensitive about his bulk, was weighed many times, first in 1806, when he was living at No. 8, only five doors away. He was then 13 stone 12 lb. in his boots. This result must have distressed exceedingly one who lived in fear of embonpoint, even to the drinking of vinegar and general mortification of the flesh. In 1807, in shoes only, he had got it down to 10 stone 13 lb., and in 1811, again in shoes, to 9 stone 11% lb. Tom Moore, his Lordship's biographer, seems similarly to have decreased, for in 1807 he was 10 stone 6 lbs. and in 1809, 8 stone 13 lb. Another famous man who can also have had no wish to lose his figure, and who will go down to history as much for his insolent question as to the identity of the Prince Regent (with whom he had quarrelled) "Who's your fat friend?" as for his fastidiousness in ties, dwindled too. In 1798 he was 12 stone 4 lb., in boots; in 1811, 13 stone 10 lb. in boots and frock; and in 1815, 12 stone 10y2 lb., in shoes. In 1815 the Beau's reign was nearing its end, for a year later he had to fly from his creditors to Calais. None the less there is still one more entry, in 1822, suggesting t...