316
The Man-Mountain.
March,
your immense body between her and me. She is my betrothed bride, and mine she shall be for ever."
" I have weighty reasons for loving her/' replied Mr Tims.
" Were your reasons as weighty as your person, you shall not love her."
" She shall be mine," responded he, with a deeply-drawn sigh. " You cannot, at least, prevent her image from being enshrined in my heart. No, Julia ! even when thou descend- est to the grave, thy remembrance will cause thee to live in my imagination, and I shall thus write thine elegy :
I cannot deem thee dead like the per- fumes Arising from Judea's vanished shrines
Thy voice still floats around me nor can tombs
A thousand, from my memory hide the lines
Of beauty, on thine aspect which abode,
Like streaks of sunshine pictured there by God.
She shall be mine," continued he in the same strain. " Prose and verse shall woo her for my lady-love ; and she shall blush and hang her head in modest joy, even as the rose when listening to the music of her beloved bulbul beneath the stars of night."
These amorous effusions, and the tone of insufferable affectation with which they were uttered, roused my corruption to its utmost pitch, and I exclaimed aloud, " Think not, thou revivification of Falstaff thou enlar- ged edition of Lambert thou folio of humanity thou Titan thou Bria- reus thou Sphynx thou Goliath of
Gath, that I shall bend beneath thy ponderous insolence !" The Mountain was amazed at my courage: I was amazed at it myself; but what will not love, inspired by brandy, effect ?
" No," continued I, seeing the im- pression my words had produced upon him, " I despise thee, and defy thee, even as Hercules did Antajus, as Samp- son did Harapha, as Orlando did Fer- ragus. ' Bulk without spirit vast/ I fear thee not come on." So saying, I rushed onward to the Mountain, who arose from his seat to receive me. The following passage from the Ago- nistes of Milton will give some idea of our encounter.
" As with the force of winds and waters
pent, When mountains tremble, these two
massy pillars,
With horrible convulsion to and fro, He tugged, he shook, till down they
came, and drew The whole roof after them, with burst
of thunder, Upon the heads of all who sat beneath."
" Psha !" said Julia, blushing mo- destly, "can't you let me go ?" Sweet Julia ! I had got her in my arms.
"But where," said I, "isMrTims?"
" Mr who ?" said she.
" The Man-Mountain-"
" Mr Tims ! Man-Mountain !" resumed Julia, with unfeigned sur- prise. " I know of no such persons. How jocular you are to night not to say how ill-bred, for you have been asleep for the last five minutes !"
" Sweet sweet Julia !"
A MODERN PYTHAGOREAN.
SKETCHES OF ITALY AND THE ITALIANS, WITH REMARKS ON ANTIQUITIES
AND FINE AUTS.
(Continued.')
XX. ARRIVAL IN HOME.
I ARRIVED in Rome on the fourth of January, a bright winter Sunday, about noon. I had passed the night at Monte Rosi, three stages from the metropolis. Near Baccano, I percei- ved that the carriage was bounding and rattling over a stony road. " What is that?" I called out to the vetturino. "An antiquity, Signor ! the remains of the Via Cassia." "And why do you drive so fast over this jolting
road?" "The air is bad here, Sig- nor ! and the road is dangerous. A carriage was plundered the day before yesterday, in broad daylight, a few hundred paces hence." " Go on." "Look, Signor ! there hang the arms of a criminal, on each side the road ; farther on, another pair ; and yester- day we passed three or four pairs in the dark." Looking through the car- riage window, I beheld the wasted
