THE DEATH OF MR. LAMBERT!
FROM THE STAMFORD PAPER,
Friday, June 23, 1809.
We have to announce the death of this celebrated man, which took place in this town at half past 8 o'clock on Wednesday morning last.
Mr. Lambert had travelled from Huntingdon hither in the early part of the week, intending to receive the visits of the curious who might attend the ensuing races. On Tuesday evening he sent a message to the office of this paper, requesting that, as "the mountain could not wait upon Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain." Or, in other words, that the printer would call upon him to receive an order for executing some handbills, announcing Mr. Lambert's arrival, and his desire to see company.
The orders he gave upon that occasion were delivered without any presentiment that they were to be his last, and with his usual cheerfulness. He was in bed—one of large dimensions—("Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa")—fatigued with his journey; but anxious that the bills might be quickly printed, in order to his seeing company next morning.
Before nine o'clock on that morning, however, he was a corpse! Nature had endured all the trespass she could admit: the poor man's corpulency had constantly increased, until, at the time we have mentioned, the clogged machinery of life stood still, and the prodigy of Mammon was numbered with the dead.
He was in his 40th year; and upon being weighed, within a few days, by the famous Caledon's balance, was found to be 52 stone 11 pounds in weight (14lb. to the stone), which is 10 stone 11lb. more than the great Mr. Bright, of Essex, ever weighed.—He had apartments at Mr. Berridge's, the Waggon and Horses, in St. Martin's, on the ground floor—for he had been long incapable of walking up stairs.
His coffin, in which there has been great difficulty of placing him, is 6 feet 4 inches long, 4 feet 4 inches wide, and 2 feet 4 inches deep; the immense substance of his legs makes it necessarily almost a square case. The celebrated sarcophagus of Alexander, viewed with so much admiration at the British Museum, would not nearly contain this immense sheer hulk.
The coffin, which consists of 112 superficial feet of elm, is built upon 2 axletrees and 4 cog wheels; and upon these the remains of the poor man will be rolled into his grave; which we understand is to be in the new burial-ground at the back of St. Martin's church.—A regular descent will be made by cutting away the earth slopingly for some distance—the window and wall of the room in which he lies must be taken down to allow his exit.—He is to be buried at 8 o'clock this morning.
N.B. There is a very good coloured portrait of Daniel Lambert, published by W. Darton, Holborn; with particulars concerning him. Price One Shilling.
