GIANTS, is the name given to men whose stature greatly exceeds the ordinary size of the human race.
On surveying the field of nature, we sometimes discover aberrations from her usual course. Animals are seen of dimensions infinitely surpassing those which commonly be long to their kind ; and vegetables of a bulk so remarkable, as to excite astonishment in thebeholder. \Ve are thence led to enquire, What secret principle is it that limits the expansion of animal and vegetable matter ? How is it con fined within definite boundaries, those which at once mai k the identity of species by the most prominent analogies ? We should find it difficult to solve these questions, and perhaps our knowledge of the vital and material economy of the two great kingdoms now alluded to is still too imper fect for us to hazard conjectural explanations.
In most of the ancient histories of the world, we read of giants. They also find a place in many of those of modern date : and the name is so universally employed by poets and romancers, that nothing can be more familiar to our ears. Not only are individual giants repeatedly referred to, but the existence of whole nations of those, who have viewed their fellow-men as a pigmy race, has been admit ted as a fact not to be called into dispute. During a retro spect of many centuries, likewise, successive degradation in the stature and strength of mankind is maintained to have taken place, which, were it true, would scarcely al low our contemporaries to reach the knees of their ances tors, and bestow no more power upon them, than the others possessed in their fingers. Those, however, who are ac customed to reason from facts, who disregard conjecture, and are enabled to separate truth from fiction, feel inclined to question whether there ever was a race of•giants, as ge nerally understood by that name ; and whether the race of mankind under the same latitude, has decreased in any re spect since the clays of our original parents.
Perhaps the discordant opinions on this subject are not so irreconcileable as at first sight may appear ; and by care fully analysing all that has been recorded in history, we shall find that individuals of gigantic stature have existed at different xras ; and that at the present day, there are one or two tribes of South Americans, whose size considerably surpasses the dimensions commonly allotted to mankind. But it is essential to beware of the exaggerations to which men have ever been prone ; and not to allow our credulity to be imposed upon by what is utterly beyond belief, from whatever source the narrative shall be received.
In scripture it is related, at a period apparently contem porary with Noah, or immediately antecedent to the flood, " that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose." Further," there were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men : and they hare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, and men of renown." These passages, it is true, contain some ob scurities ; but we do not conceive that they warrant the conclusion which certain critics have deduced, of this gi gantic race being the offspring of divinities and human fe males. At in Judea, there was a celebrated tribe
of giants, the sons of Anak ; and the spies sent out by Mo ses to reconnoitre the country seem to have made their re port in these words : " And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants ; and we were in our own sight as grashoppers, and so we were in their sight." Although only three individuals, Ahiman, Shcshai, and Talmai, are previously named as the children of Anak, it is elsewhere said, " it is a land which eateth up the inhabi tants thereof, and all the people that are in it are men of great stature." Thus the context proves the correctness of the translation of this part of scripture ; and that the ap pellation giants is not the proper name of a particular tribe, or nation, or tyrants, or evil doers, as commentators have inferred. Further, their history is continued, and Og, King of Basilan, in the same regions, is specifically described, somewhat later, as the last of the race ; as also, "Bastian which was called the land of giants." This king was en countered and slain by Moses at the head of the Israelites, apparently at the gates of his own city ; and it is said, " for only Og, King of Bashan, remained of the remnant of gi ants : behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron : is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon ? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." This extraordinary bedstead, therefore, must have been between 14 and 16 feet long, and about 7 in breadth, according as the cubit is taken, at 18 or 20 inches. The next giant of whom we read in scripture was Goliath ; but before leaving the gigantic king of Bashan, we may remark, that a spacious cavern is said to have been found near Jerusalem some thousand years after his death, containing a grave or tomb, with an inscription in Chaldaic, Here lies the giant Og. A tooth weighing four pounds and a quarter was found in the tomb, which, being sent from Constantinople, was offered to the emperor of Germany as a curiosity for 2000 rixdollars, in 1678. The emperor, however, being doubtful of the fact, ordered the tooth to be returned. The stature of Goliath must have been consi derably inferior to that of Og ; but his corporeal strength is undoubted, on considering his weapons and armour. Commentators conclude that. six cubits and a span, de scribed to be his height, make about eleven feet, though we should be inclined to reduce it to about ten at the ut most. He was a professed warrior, and a champion of the Philistines ; " the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron." " Ile was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5000 shekels of brass." No prolane history is equally explicit as scripture regarding a distinct race of giants of extraordinary size ; and we have united the pas sages to be found concerning them, previous to descending to a later date.