Then the rapid movements and gestures ceased, and the speaker was silent. A cloud came over his rough-hewn majestic visage; he drew himself up, and swayed his body from side to side, and shook his black gown, and lifted his arms, as their plumed homologues are lifted by some great bird, and let them fall again two or three times; and then said, in deep measured tones, which seemed to express rage and despair, "But did you ever see the eagle in his cage?" The effect of the contrast was grand. He shook himself again, and lifted and dropped his arms again, assuming, for the nonce, the peculiar aquiline slouch; and there before us stood the mighty bird of Jove, as we are accustomed to see it in the Zoological Gardens; its deep-set, desolate eyes looking through and beyond us; ruffling its dark plumage, and lifting its heavy wings as if about to scorn the earth, only to drop them again, and to utter one of those long dreary cries which seem to protest so eloquently against a barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten--at all events, never by an ornithologist. Doubtless this part of his discourse proved eminently pleasing to the majority of his hearers, who, looking downwards into the depths of their own natures, would be able to discern there a glimmer, or possibly more than a glimmer of that divine quality he had spoken of, and which was, unhappily for them, not recognized by the world at large; so that, for the moment, he was addressing a congregation of captive eagles, all mentally ruffling their plumage and flapping their pinions, and uttering indignant screams of protest against the injustice of their lot.