broadsword, bow and bill, And learn'd to wield the Pencil
and the Quill. The glowing canvas and the written page Immortaliz'd his
name from age to age, His name emblazon'd on Fame's temple wall; For
Art grew great as Humankind grew small. Thus man's long progress step by
step we trace; The Giant dies, the hero takes his place; The Giant vile,
the dull heroic Block: At one we shudder and at one we mock. Man
last appears. In him the Soul's pure flame Burns brightlier in a not
inord'nate frame. Of old when Heroes fought and Giants swarmed, Men were
huge mounds of matter scarce inform'd; Wearied by leavening so vast a
mass, The spirit slept and all the mind was crass. The smaller carcase
of these later days Is soon inform'd; the Soul unwearied plays And like
a Pharos darts abroad her mental rays. But can we think that Providence
will stay Man's footsteps here upon the upward way? Mankind in
understanding and in grace Advanc'd so far beyond the Giants' race?
Hence impious thought! Still led by GOD'S own Hand, Mankind proceeds
towards the Promised Land. A time will come (prophetic, I descry Remoter
dawns along the gloomy sky), When happy mortals of a Golden Age Will
backward turn the dark historic page, And in our vaunted race of Men
behold A form as gross, a Mind as dead and cold, As we in Giants see,
in warriors of old. A time will come, wherein the soul shall be From all
superfluous matter wholly free; When the light body, agile as a fawn's,
Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns. Nature's most delicate
and final birth, Mankind perfected shall possess the earth. But ah, not
yet! For still the Giants' race, Huge, though diminish'd, tramps the
Earth's fair face; Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, Men of
their imperfections boast aloud. Vain of their bulk, of all they still
retain Of giant ugliness absurdly vain; At all that's small they point
their stupid scorn And, monsters, think themselves divinely born. Sad
is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed, The rare precursors of the nobler
breed! Who come man's golden glory to foretell, But pointing Heav'nwards
live themselves in Hell.'

"As soon as he came into the estate, Sir Hercules set about remodelling
his household. For though by no means ashamed of his deformity--indeed,
if we may judge from the poem quoted above, he regarded himself as being
in many ways superior to the ordinary race of man--he found the presence
of full-grown men and women embarrassing. Reali