Lambert’s height was five feet eleven inches; three yards four inches round the body; one yard and one inch round the leg; his weight, a few days before his death, was found by the Caledonian balance to be 739lbs. His coffin measured 6 feet 4 inches long, 4 feet 4 inches wide, 2 feet 4 inches deep, and contained 112 superficial feet of elm. It was built upon two axletrees and four clog wheels, and upon these his remains were, at about half past eight o’clock on Friday morning, the 23rd, drawn to the new burial ground, in St. Martin’s, Stamford. His grave was dug with a gradual sloping for many yards, and upwards of 20 men were employed for nearly half an hour (after having dragged the corpse to the mouth of the grave) in getting this enormous mass of putridity into its “narrow cell.” Notwithstanding the early hour at which he was buried, a great concourse of people, “youth and hoar age,” were assembled, numbers of whom had been in expectation of seeing him alive, in propria persona, but were now obliged to content themselves with the mere sight of his coffin, which, to a contemplative mind, would create reflections on the mutability of all sublunary things.
“The grave has eloquence, its lectures teach,
In silence, louder than divines can preach.”
We shall now proceed to state what we have been able to collect relative to the habits, manners, and propensities of this extraordinary man.
It is not improbable that incessant exercise in the open air, in the early part of his life laid the foundation of an uncommonly healthy constitution. Lambert scarcely knew what it was to be ailing or indisposed. His temperance, no doubt, contributed towards this uninterrupted flow of health. His food differed in no respect from that of other people; he ate with moderation, and of one dish at a time. He never drank any other beverage than water; and though at one period of his life he seldom spent an evening at home, but with convivial parties, he never could be prevailed on to join his companions in their libations. One of the qualifications that strongly tend to promote harmony and conviviality, was possessed in an eminent degree by Lambert—He had a fine, powerful, and melodious voice. It was a strong tenor, unlike that of a fat man, light, and unembarrassed, and the articulation perfectly clear.
He never felt any pain in his progress towards his extraordinary bulk, but increased gradually and imperceptibly. Before he was bulky he never knew what it was to be out of wind. It was evident to all those who were acquainted with him, that he had no oppression upon his lungs, from fat or any other cause: and Dr. Heaviside expressed his opinion, that his life was as good (or comfortable) as that of any other healthy man.
Lambert slept less than the generality of mankind, being never more than eight hours in bed. He never was inclined to drowsiness, either after dinner or in any other part of the day: and such was the vivacity of his disposition; that he was always the last person to retire to rest, which he seldom did before one o’clock. He slept without having his head raised more than is usual with other men, and always with the window open. His respiration was so perfectly free and unobstructed, that he never snored; and what is not a little extraordinary, he could awake within five minutes of any time he pleased. All the secretions were carried on in him with the same facility as in any other person.
We have already adverted to Lambert’s fondness for hunting, coursing, racing, fishing, and cocking. He was likewise well known in his neighbourhood as a great otter-hunter. Till within these seven years, he was extremely active in all the sports of the field, and though he was prevented by his corpulence from partaking in them, he still bred cocks, setters, and pointers, which he brought to as great perfection as any other sporting character of his day, and perhaps greater. At the time when terriers were the vogue, he possessed no less than thirty of them at once. The high estimation in which animals of his breeding were held by sporting amateurs, was fully evinced in the sale of the dogs which he took with him to London, and which were disposed of at Tattersal’s, at the following prices;—Peg, a black setter bitch, 41gs: Punch, a setter dog, 26gs; Brush, ditto, 17gs; Bob, ditto, 20gs; Bounce, ditto, 22gs; Sam, ditto, 26gs; Bell, ditto, 32gs; Charlotte, a pointer bitch, 26gs; Lucy, ditto, 12gs. Total, 218 guineas.—Mr. Mellish was the purchaser of the seven setters, and lord Kinnaird of the two pointers.
If Lambert had a greater attachment to one kind of sport than another, it was to racing. He was fond of riding himself before his weight prevented him from enjoying that exercise; and it was his opinion, founded on experience, that the more blood, and the better a horse was bred, the better it carried him.
During his residence in London, Lambert found himself in no wise affected by the change of air, unless we ought to attribute to that cause an occasional, momentary, trifling depression of spirits in a morning, much as he felt on his recovery from inflammatory attacks, which are the only kind of indisposition he ever remembered to have experienced.
The extraordinary share of health he enjoyed, was not the result of any unusual exertion on his part, as he has in many instances accustomed himself to the total neglect of those means by which men in general endeavour to preserve that inestimable blessing. As a proof of this, the following fact was related from his own lips:—Before his increasing size prevented his partaking in the sports of the field, he never could be prevailed upon, when he returned home at night from these excursions, to change any part of his clothes, however wet they might be; and he put them on again next morning, though they were, perhaps, so thoroughly soaked, as to leave behind them their mark on the floor: notwithstanding this, he never knew what it was to take cold. On one of these occasions, he was engaged with a party of young men in a boat, in drawing a pond: knowing that a principal part of this diversion always consists in sousing each other as much as possible, Lambert, before he entered the boat, walked in his clothes up to his chin into the water. He remained the whole of the day in this condition, which to any other man must have proved intolerably irksome. At night, on retiring to bed, he stripped off his shirt and all, and the next morning, putting on his clothes, wet as they were, he resumed the diversion with the rest of his companions. Nor was this all; for, lying down in the bottom of the boat, he took a comfortable nap for a couple of hours, and though the weather was rather severe, he experienced no kind of inconvenience from what might be justly considered as extreme indiscretion.