The true reporte of the forme and
shape of a monstrous childe, borne at Muche Horkesleye, a village three
myles from Colchester, in the Countye of Essex, the .xxi. daye
of Apryll in this yeare. 1562.
O, prayse ye God and
blesse his name
His mightye hande hath
wrought the same.
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THis monstrous world that monsters bredes as rife
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As men tofore it bred by native kinde
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By birthes that shewe corrupted natures strife
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Declares what sinnes beset the secrete minde.
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I meane not this as though deformed shape
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Were alwayes linkd with fraughted minde with vice
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But that in nature god such draughtes doth shape
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Resemblyng sinnes that so bin had in price,
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So grossest faultes brast out in bodyes forme
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And monster caused of want or to much store
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Of matter, shewes the sea of sinne: whose storme
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Oreflowes and whelmes vertues barren shore.
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Faultye alike in ebbe and eke in flowd,
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Like distaunt both from meane, both like extreames.
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Yet greatst excesse the want of meane doth shrowde
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And want of meane excesse from vertues meanes.
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So contraryest extreames consent in sinne
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Which to bewray to blindest eyes by syght
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Beholde a calfe hath clapt about his chinne
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His chauderne reft whence nature placed it right.
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And ruff'd drives doutfull seers to prove by speache
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Themselves not calves, and makes the fashion stale.
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In him behold by excesse from meane our breache
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And midds excesse yet want of natures shape.
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To shewe our misse beholde a guiltlesse babe
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Reft of his limmes (for such is vertues want)
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Himselfe and parentes both infamous made
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With sinful byrth: and yet a worldlyng scant.
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Feares midwyfes route: bewrayeng his parentes fault
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In want of honestye and excesse or sinne.
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Made lawfull by all lawes of man, yet halt
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Of limmes by God, scapd not the shamefull marke
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Of bastard sonne in bastard shape descryed.
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Better farre better ungyven were his lyfe
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Than geven so. For nature just envyed
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Her gyft to hym: and cropd wyth mayming knyfe
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His limmes, to wreake her spyte on parentes sinne.
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Which, if she spare unwares so many scapes
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As wycked world to breede wil never linne
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Theyr lives declare theyr maims saved from their shapes
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Scorchd in theyr mindes (o cruel privye mayme
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That festreth styll, o unrecured sore)
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Where thothers quiting wyth theyr bodyes shame
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Theyr parentes guilt, oft linger not theyr lyves
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In lothed shapes but naked flye to skyes.
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As this may do whose forme tofore thine eyes
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Through want thou seest, a monstrous uglye shape
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Whom frendly world to sinne doth terme a scape.
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ON Tuysday being the .xxi. day of Apryll, in this yeare of our Lorde God a
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thousand fyve hundred thre score and two, there was borne a man childe
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of this maymed forme at Muche Horkesley in Essex, a village about thre
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myles from Colchester, betwene a naturall father and a naturall mother
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having neyther hande, foote, legge, nor arme, but on the left syde it hath a
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Stumpe growynge out of the shoulder, and the ende thereof is rounde,
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and not so long as it should go to the elbowe, and on the ryghte syde no
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mencion of anything where any arme should be, but a litel stumpe of one ynche in length, al-
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so on the left buttocke there is a stumpe comming out of the length of the thygh almost to the
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knee, and round at the ende, and groweth something overthwart towardes the place where
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the ryght legge should be, and where the ryghte legge should be, there is no mencion of anye
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legge or stumpe. Also it hath a Codde and stones but no yearde, but a lytell hole for the water
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to issue out. Finallye it hath by estimation no tounge, by reason whereof it sucketh not, but is
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succoured wyth liquide substaunce put into the mouth by droppes, and nowe begynneth to
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feede wyth pappe beyng very well favoured, and of good and cheareful face.
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The aforesayde Anthony Smyth of Much Horkesley husbandman and his wyfe, were
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both maryed to others before, and have had dyvers chyldren, but this deformed childe is the
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fyrst that the sayd Anthony and his wyfe had betwene them two, it is a man chylde. This
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chylde was begot out of matrimony, but borne in matrimonye. And at the makynge hereof
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was living, and like to continue.
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