The Editor’s Visits to Claude Ambroise Seurat,
EXHIBITED IN PALL MALL UNDER THE APPELLATION OF THE
ANATOMIE VIVANTE; or, LIVING SKELETON!
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
Shakspeare.
I have visited Claude Ambroise Seurat. Some would call him an unhappy or a miserable creature; he is neither unhappy nor miserable. “God tempers the wind to the shorn limb.”
How little do they see what is, who frame
Their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
Southey.
If Seurat had not seen men of firmer make, he would not know that the infirmity peculiar to himself is unnatural. Were he dressed like other persons, there is nothing in his countenance or speech to denote him different from themselves; and yet the difference is so great, that it is wonderful that he should “live, and move, and have his being.”
The “Interesting Account and Anatomical Description” of this extraordinary individual, sold at the Chinese Saloon, where he is exhibited, is to the following effect:—