SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? pray, if it be, give

it me, for I am slow of study.

QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

--MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

When the Countess of Leicester arrived at the outer gate of the Castle

of Kenilworth, she found the tower, beneath which its ample portal arch

opened, guarded in a singular manner. Upon the battlements were placed

gigantic warders, with clubs, battle-axes, and other implements of

ancient warfare, designed to represent the soldiers of King Arthur;

those primitive Britons, by whom, according to romantic tradition,

the Castle had been first tenanted, though history carried back its

antiquity only to the times of the Heptarchy.

Some of these tremendous figures were real men, dressed up with vizards

and buskins; others were mere pageants composed of pasteboard and

buckram, which, viewed from beneath, and mingled with those that

were real, formed a sufficiently striking representation of what was

intended. But the gigantic porter who waited at the gate beneath, and

actually discharged the duties of warder, owed none of his terrors to

fictitious means. We was a man whose huge stature, thews, sinews, and

bulk in proportion, would have enabled him to enact Colbrand, Ascapart,

or any other giant of romance, without raising himself nearer to heaven

even by the altitude of a chopin. The legs and knees of this son of Anak

were bare, as were his arms from a span below the shoulder; but his

feet were defended with sandals, fastened with cross straps of scarlet

leather studded with brazen knobs. A close jerkin of scarlet velvet

looped with gold, with short breeches of the same, covered his body and

a part of his limbs; and he wore on his shoulders, instead of a cloak,

the skin of a black bear. The head of this formidable person was

uncovered, except by his shaggy, black hair, which descended on either

side around features of that huge, lumpish, and heavy cast which are

often annexed to men of very uncommon size, and which, notwithstanding

some distinguished exceptions, have created a general prejudice against

giants, as being a dull and sullen kind of persons. This tremendous

warder was appropriately armed with a heavy club spiked with steel. In

fine, he represented excellently one of those giants of popular romance,

who figure in every fairy tale or legend of knight-errantry.

The demeanour of this modern Titan, when Wayland Smith bent his

attention to him, had in it something arguing much mental embarrassment

and vexation; for sometimes he sat down for an instant on a massive

stone bench, which seemed placed for his accommodation beside the

gateway, and then ever and anon he started up, scratching his huge head,

and striding to and fro on his post, like one under a fit of impatience

and anxiety. It was while the porter was pacing before the gate in this

agitated manner, that Wayland, modestly, yet as a matter of course (not,

however, without some mental misgiving), was about to pass him, and

enter the portal arch. The porter, however, stopped his progress,

bidding him, in a thundering voice, "Stand back!" and enforcing his

injunction by heaving up his steel-shod mace, and dashing it on the

ground before Wayland's horse's nose with such vehemence that the

pavement flashed fire, and the archway rang to the clamour. Wayland,

availing himself of Dickie's hints, began to state that he belonged to a

band of performers to which his presence was indispensable, that he had

been accidentally detained behind, and much to the same purpose. But

the warder was inexorable, and kept muttering and murmuring something

betwixt his teeth, which Wayland could make little of; and addressing

betwixt whiles a refusal of admittance, couched in language which was

but too intelligible. A specimen of his speech might run thus:--"What,

how now, my masters?" (to himself)--"Here's a stir--here's a

coil."--(Then to Wayland)--"You are a loitering knave, and shall have no

entrance."--(Again to himself)--"Here's a throng--here's a thrusting.--I

shall ne'er get through with it--Here's a--humph--ha."--(To

Wayland)--"Back from the gate, or I'll break the pate of thee."--(Once

more to himself)--"Here's a--no--I shall never get through it."




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