Ix 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



is briefly this : — The public offices emitted a very 

 strong smell : the impositions there had been accu- 

 mulating for a long time. He had not been a week 

 in the town before the fumes turned him sick at 

 stomach. He vowed he would clear the town of 

 the nuisance, and have all the litter wheeled out, 

 although he should work day and night. This was 

 a second Augean job; and from this he got the 

 name of Hercules. 



" Well, and did he set to work in good earnest ? 

 He did indeed. He cleared many of the offices 

 to their original pavement ; he handled numbers 

 of the tenants in the different departments very 

 roughly ; some he hurled neck and crop out of the 

 fattening pen, and others he frightened nearly out 

 of their senses. 



" He could not bear the sight of the Dutch law- 

 yers. He told them that their stomachs were as 

 craving as that of the vulture on the liver of Tityus; 

 that they were the scourge of the country ; that 

 they were worse to manage than the brazen-footed 

 bulls of old ; that they belonged to Celaeno ; and 

 that, if he only kept his health, he would, ere long, 

 drive them all into Stymphalus. 



" Poor, well-intending, much lamented Old Her- 

 cules ! In the openness of his heart, oftentimes, at 

 table after dinner (which is the very worst place 

 and time for a man to open his mouth on things of 

 consequence), he would talk of his intended plans 

 and operations to those around him. He was too 

 sincere himself to suspect the want of sincerity in 

 some of those who ate his bread and drank his wine. 



