Sicca when they suddenly sickened and died. When they thus had done all
the mischief they could by their living, when they thus had made their
foul maws the grave of every living thing, next they died themselves,
and made the desolated land their own grave. They took from it its
hundred forms and varieties of beautiful life, and left it their own
fetid and poisonous carcases in payment. It was a sudden catastrophe;
they seemed making for the Mediterranean, as if, like other great
conquerors, they had other worlds to subdue beyond it; but, whether they
were overgorged, or struck by some atmospheric change, or that their
time was come and they paid the debt of nature, so it was that suddenly
they fell, and their glory came to nought, and all was vanity to them as
to others, and "their stench rose up, and their corruption rose up,
because they had done proudly."

The hideous swarms lay dead in the moist steaming underwoods, in the
green swamps, in the sheltered valleys, in the ditches and furrows of
the fields, amid the monuments of their own prowess, the ruined crops
and the dishonored vineyards. A poisonous element, issuing from their
remains, mingled with the atmosphere, and corrupted it. The dismayed
peasant found that a plague had begun; a new visitation, not confined to
the territory which the enemy had made its own, but extending far and
wide, as the atmosphere extends, in all directions. Their daily toil, no
longer claimed by the fruits of the earth, which have ceased to exist,
is now devoted to the object of ridding themselves of the deadly legacy
which they have received in their stead. In vain; it is their last toil;
they are digging pits, they are raising piles, for their own corpses, as
well as for the bodies of their enemies. Invader and victim lie in the
same grave, burn in the same heap; they sicken while they work, and the
pestilence spreads.

LXII. THE CANE-BOTTOM'D CHAIR.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.--1811-1863.

In tatter'd old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day
Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks
With wo