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THE following letter, addressed to the publisher of the first and second editions of this book, will be read with interest :--
263 HAMPSTRAD ROAD, NW., April 18th, 1865
DEAR MR. HOTTEN,-- I have received your note, in which you express a doubt as to whether some portion of the public will understand my representation of the Giant
Bolster."
To all such persons, I would beg of them to reflect, that if a giant could stride six miles across a country, he must be twelve miles in height, according to the proportions of the human figure. In order to get a sight of the head of such a giant, the spectator must be distant a mite or two from the figure. This would, by adding half the "stride" and above eleven mites perpendicular, place the spectator about fifteen miles distant from the giant's head, which head, to proportion to the other parts of the body, would be about three-quarters of a mile, measuring from the chin to the crown of the head. Now, let any one calculate, according to the laws of perspective, what size such a head would be at such a distance. To give a little insight into the matter of perspective, let any one imagine that they are looking down a street, fifteen miles long, of large houses, and then caculate what size the last house would be at the farther end of the Street; and it must therefore be recollected that every part of such a huge body must lessen in the same way--body and limbs--smaller by degrees, if not beautifully less.
I selected this subject from, my friend Robert Hunt's work as, one of the numerous proofs, which are shown in both the volumes, of the horrible dark ignorance of the Early Ages--a large amount of which ignorance and darkness, I am sorry to find, still remains. I hope that these few inns will explain satisfactorily why Giant "Bolster" has been thus displayed by,
-- Yours truly, GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
P.S.--The first time that I put a very large figure in perspective was about forty years back, in illustrating that part of" Paradise Lost' where Milton describes Satan as
"Prone on, the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood."
This I never published, but possibly I may do so one of these days.