Volume 1

Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters.

Date:
[1819?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    after the marriage of Charles I. an entertainment being given to his majesty, little Jeffry was served up to table in a cold pye, from whence he suddenly emerged in complete armour made of grey satin. Soon after this her grace presented him to the Queen Henrietta Maria, who kept him for her dwarf, and he was seen as often as court-days were held. It was a curious and strange contrast to meet him andW. Evans, the king’s gigantic porter, who, in a masque at court, to divert the company, drew his little friend out of his pocket with a loaf, instead of a piece of bread and cheese. Between the seventh and thirtieth years of his age, he advanced only three inches in stature, and that height he never exceeded, until he was near forty, when he had risen to three feet nine inches, and there remained. Jeffry then became a considerable part of the entertainment of the court, and Sir William Davenant wrote a poem, called Jeffriedos, in high-styled heroic verse, on a battle between him and a turkey-cock ! this very much displeas¬ ed the little hero, and he often spoke about the