not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, to evince that I could not possibly do.  They would not allow me to be a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of comparison; for the queen’s favorite dwarf, the smallest ever known in that kingdom, was nearly thirty feet high.  After much debate, they concluded unanimously that I was only relplum scalcath, which is interpreted literally, lusus naturae;[59] a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe:  whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavored in vain to disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge.

After this decisive conclusion, I entreated to be heard a word or two.  I applied myself to the king, and assured his majesty that I came from a country which abounded with several millions of both sexes, and of my own stature; where the animals, trees, and houses were all in proportion, and where, by consequence, I might be as able to defend myself, and to find sustenance, as any of his majesty’s subjects could do here; which I took for a full answer to those gentlemen’s arguments.  To this they only replied with a smile of contempt, saying, that the farmer had instructed me very well in my lesson.  The king, who had a much better understanding, dismissing his learned men, sent for the farmer, who, by good fortune, was not yet gone out of town; having therefore first examined him privately, and then confronted him with me and the young girl, his majesty began to think that what we had told him might possibly be true.  He desired the queen to order that a particular care should be taken of me, and was of opinion that Glumdalclitch should still continue in her office of tending me, because he observed that we had a great affection for each other.  A convenient apartment was provided for her at court; she had a sort of governess appointed to take care of her education, a maid to dress her, and two other servants for menial offices; but the care of me was wholly appropriated to herself.  The queen commanded her own cabinet-maker to contrive a box, that might serve me for a bed-chamber, after the model that Glumdalclitch and I should agree upon.  This man was a most ingenious artist, and, according to my directions, in three weeks finished to me a wooden chamber of sixteen feet square and twelve high, with sash-windows, a door, and two closets, like a London bed-chamber.  The board that made the ceiling was to be lifted up and down by two hinges, to put in a bed ready furnished by her majesty’s upholsterer, which Glumdalclitch took out every day to air, made it with her own hands, and, letting it down at night, locked up the roof over me.  A nice workman, who was famous for little curiosities, undertook to make