get his body for dissection that he begged his remains should be thrown into the sea. The London newspapers, during the summer of the consummation of American Independence, were agog with wild tales of the plots to secure the giant's body after death.
Says one: "The whole tribe of surgeons put in a claim for the poor departed Irish Giant, and surrounded his house just as Greenland harpooners would an enormous whale. One of them has gone so far as to have a niche made for himself in the giant's coffin, in order to his being ready at hand on 'the witching time of night, when churchyards yawn.'"
Another tale was that a rival party had equipped itself with diving-bells to salvage the prodigy from the river, where it was to be sunk at the Downs in twenty fathoms of water. A third said the undertakers had been offered a bribe of 800 guineas.
Whatever the facts, the huge skeleton was for a century a treasured possession of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London.
Spurred on by Byrne's reception, Patrick Cotter, of Kinsale, appeared presently. He also took the name of O'Brien and admitted himself to be a descendant of Brian Boru. He soon eclipsed all rival pretenders, and in the twenty years before his death accumulated a competence. Many were the stories told of him.
He used to travel in a carriage built especially for him, with a sort of well in the floor to hold his legs. One evening the carriage was stopped by a highwayman. As Cotter slowly rose to look out, the robber saw this huge figure rising apparently endlessly, and,
struck with panic, he dropped his pistol, clapped spurs to his horse and galloped away.
Then he liked to do such things as startle the watchmen by reaching up to a street lamp and taking off the cover to light his pipe; or to wager £10 that he would kiss a pretty girl at an upstairs window as he walked past.
Some half a century back a gentleman wrote to one of the magazines that he possessed the giant's gold watch, which weighed a pound, and had his name engraved in it, and was still in good running order.
Rather more interesting than these show giants were the corps of gigantic guards, such as those maintained for half a century at Potsdam by the Prussian kings. (Even James I had a door-keeper, Walter Parsons, about seven-and-a-half feet tall; and Cromwell boasted another, Daniel, of the same size, who became insane from religious ecstasy.) These huge soldiers were gathered with great care, from all countries, the tallest being seven feet six inches; and since they were well built athletic men they made a most impressive appearance.