_Mr. B._ Poor little creature: such objects are much to be pitied. There
are persons who take pleasure in seeing them; but I must confess, there
is something to me extremely unnatural, in such an exposure of our
unhappy fellow-creatures.

_Edward_. Did not Peter the Great, on some occasion, assemble a vast
number together?

_Mr. B._ He did; and I rather think Emily can give you an account of it.

_Emily_. It was in the year 1710, that a marriage between two dwarfs was
celebrated at the Russian court. The preparations for this wedding were
very grand, and executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. Peter ordered
that all the dwarfs, both men and women, within two hundred miles,
should repair to the capital, and insisted that they should be present
at the ceremony. Some of them were unwilling to comply with this order,
knowing that the object was to turn them into ridicule; but he soon
obliged them to obey, and, as a punishment for their reluctance, made
them wait on the others. There were seventy assembled, besides the bride
and bridegroom, who were richly adorned in the extreme of fashion.
Everything was suitably provided for the little company; a low table,
small plates, little glasses; in short, all was dwindled down to their
own standard. Dancing followed the dinner, and the ball was opened with
a minuet by the bride and bridegroom, the latter of whom was exactly
three feet two inches high, and the day closed more cheerfully than it
had begun.

_Edward._ I had always understood that Peter was a man of a very
barbarous disposition, and I think this circumstance is a strong proof
of it. How cruel! to make sport of the misfortunes and miseries of