The Life of That Wonderful and Extraordinarily Heavy Man, Daniel Lambert / From His Birth to the Moment of His Dissolution; With an Account of Men Noted for Their Corpulency, and Other Interesting Matter

WITH
An Account of Men noted for their Corpulency, and other interesting matter .
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WOOD & SONS, NO. 261, PEARL-STREET; And Samuel S. Wood & Co. No. 212, Market-street, Baltimore.
1818.
Daniel Lambert was born on the 13 of March, 1770, in the Parish of St. Margaret, at Leicester. From the extraordinary bulk to which he attained, the reader may be naturally disposed to inquire, whether or no his parents were persons of remarkable dimensions. This was not the case; nor were any of his family inclined to corpulence, excepting an uncle and aunt on the father’s side, who were both very heavy. The former died during the infancy of Lambert, in the capacity of gamekeeper to the Earl of Stamford, to whose predecessor his father had been huntsman in early life. The family of Lambert, senior, consisted besides Daniel, of another son, who died young, and two daughters, who are still living, and both women of the common size.
The habits of the subject of this memoir were not, in any respect, different from those of other young persons till the age of fourteen. Even at that early period he was strongly attached to the sports of the field. This, however, was only the natural effect of a very obvious cause, aided probably by an innate propensity to those diversions.—We have already mentioned the profession of his father and uncle, and have yet to observe, that his maternal grandfather was a great cock-fighter. Born and bred among horses, dogs, and cocks, and all the other appendages of sporting, in the pursuits of which he was encouraged even in his childhood, it cannot be a matter of wonder that he should be passionately fond of all those exercises and amusements, which are comprehended under the denomination of field sports.
Brought up under the eye of his parents till the age of fourteen, young Lambert was then placed with Benjamin Patrick, in the manufactory of Taylor & Co. at Birmingham, to learn the business of a die-sinker and engraver. This establishment, then one of the most flourishing in that opulent town, was afterwards destroyed in the riots of 1791, by which the celebrated Dr. Priestly was so considerable a sufferer.