in every direction, and Oliver went over backwards.  About ten nights after that, he recovered confidence enough to go to writing poetry again.  Again he dozed off to sleep, and again a mule fell down the chimney.  This time, about half of that side of the house came in with the mule.  Struggling to get up, the mule kicked the candle out and smashed most of the kitchen furniture, and raised considerable dust.  These violent awakenings must have been annoying to Oliver, but he never complained.  He moved to a mansion on the opposite side of the canon, because he had noticed the mules did not go there.  One night about eight o’clock he was endeavoring to finish his poem, when a stone rolled in—­then a hoof appeared below the canvas—­then part of a cow—­the after part.  He leaned back in dread, and shouted “Hooy! hooy! get out of this!” and the cow struggled manfully—­lost ground steadily—­dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver could get well away, the entire cow crashed through on to the table and made a shapeless wreck of every thing!

Then, for the first time in his life, I think, Oliver complained.  He said,

“This thing is growing monotonous!”

Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt county.  “Butchered to make a Roman holyday” has grown monotonous to me.

In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti.  I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo—­that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture—­great in every thing he undertook.  But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast—­for luncheon—­for dinner—­for tea—­for supper—­for between meals.  I like a change, occasionally.  In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo?  In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone.  In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular.  He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia.  But, here—­here it is frightful.  He designed St. Peter’s; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope’s soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima—­the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it!  Dan said the other day to the guide, “Enough, enough, enough!  Say no more!  Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!”