The Urge to Propose

This is St. Valentine's Day, when many a man feels the compulsion to kneel and propose wedlock.

Let us hope they fare better than Edward Gibbon, author "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbon, on a terrace with Lady Elizabeth Foster, dropped to his knees and asked her to marry. Lady Elizabeth declined, and said, "I bid you to rise." Unfortunately, the roly-poly Gibbon found he could not. 

It is not recorded how the portly historian eventually was moved. Perhaps by a horse-drawn cart, the 18th century equivalent of a tow truck.