The ancient magistrates of this city corresponded with those of the present time no less in form, magnitude, and intellect, than in prerogative and privilege.  The burgomasters, like our aldermen, were generally chosen by weight—­and not only the weight of the body, but likewise the weight of the head.  It is a maxim practically observed in all honest, plain-thinking, regular cities, that an alderman should be fat; and the wisdom of this can be proved to a certainty.  That the body is in some measure an image of the mind, or rather that the mind is moulded to the body, like melted lead to the clay in which it is cast, has been insisted on by many philosophers, who have made human nature their peculiar study; for, as a learned gentleman of our own city observes, “there is a constant relation between the moral character of all intelligent creatures, and their physical constitution—­between their habits and the structure of their bodies.”  Thus we see that a lean, spare, diminutive body is generally accompanied by a petulant, restless, meddling mind; either the mind wears down the body, by its continual motion; or else the body, not affording the mind sufficient house-room, keeps it continually in a state of fretfulness, tossing and worrying about from the uneasiness of its situation.  Whereas your round, sleek, fat, unwieldly periphery is ever attended by a mind like itself, tranquil, torpid, and at ease; and we may alway observe, that your well-fed, robustious burghers are in general very tenacious of their ease and comfort; being great enemies to noise, discord, and disturbance—­and surely none are more likely to study the public tranquillity than those who are so careful of their own.  Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs!  No—­no—­it is your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently attended to by philosophers of the present age, allows to every man three souls—­one immortal and rational, seated in the brain, that it may overlook and regulate the body; a second, consisting of the surly and irascible passions which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped around the heart; a third, mortal and sensual, destitute of reason, gross and brutal in its propensities, and enchained in the belly, that it may not disturb the divine soul by its ravenous howlings.  Now, according to this excellent theory, what can be more clear, than that your fat alderman is most likely to have the most regular and well-conditioned mind.  His head is like a huge spherical chamber, containing a prodigious mass of soft brains, whereon the rational soul lies softly and snugly couched, as on a feather-bed; and the eyes which are the windows of the bedchamber, are usually half-closed, that its slumberings may not be disturbed by external objects.  A mind thus comfortably lodged, and protected from disturbance, is manifestly most like to perform its