Its placidity was now gone--its air of self-possession lost. New powers seemed to be every moment developing themselves throughout its vast form--new and more terrible powers. It was beginning to have a _wild look!_ It was evident that it was now _fleshed_--that its naturally savage disposition, formerly dormant for want of excitement, was now rising tumultuously within it--that it would soon perform such deeds as would scare us all! It had engaged itself, before I commenced my observations, upon a roast jigot of mutton, which happened to lie near it. This it soon nearly finished. It then cast a look of fearful omen at a piece of cold beef, which lay immediately beyond it, and which, being placed within reach by some kind neighbour it immediately commenced upon, with as much fierceness as it had just exemplified in the case of the mutton. The beef also was soon laid waste, and another look of extermination was forthwith cast at a broken pigeon-pie, which lay still farther off. Hereupon the eye had scarcely alighted, when the man nearest it, with laudable promptitude, handed it upwards. Scarcely was it laid on the altar of destruction, when it disappeared too; and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth look, were successively cast at other dishes, which the different members of the party* as promptly sent away, and which the Mouth as promptly despatched. By this time, all the rest of the party were lying upon their oars, observing, with leisurely astonishment, the progress of the surviving, and, as it appeared to them, eternal feeder. _He_ went on, rejoicing in his strength, unheeding their idleness and wonder, his very soul apparently engrossed in the grand business of devouring. They seemed to enter into a sort of tacit compact, or agreement, to indulge and facilitate him in his progress, by making themselves, as it were, his servitors. Whatever dish he looked at, therefore, over the wide expanse of the table, immediately disappeared from its place. One after another, they trooped off towards the head of the table, like the successive brigades which Wellington despatched at Waterloo, against a particular field of French artillery; and, still, dish after dish, like the said brigades, came successively away, broken, shattered, diminished. Fish, flesh, and fowl, disappeared at the glance of that awful eye, as the Roman fleet withered and vanished before the grand burning glass of Archimedes. The end of all things seemed at hand! The Mouth was arrived at a perfect transport of voracity! It seemed to be no more capable of restraining itself than some great engine, full of tremendous machinery, which cannot stop of itself. It had no self-will. It was an unaccountable being. It was a separate creature, independent of the soul. It was not a human thing at all. It was every thing that was superhuman--every thing that was immense--inconceivably enormous! All objects seemed reeling and toppling on towards it, like the