AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON 1'OliTRY. 83 



one word. That one word is " thing." It is, also, excellently pro- 

 vided for on the rhyming score. Besides an infinite number of mo- 

 nosyllables, you may make use of all the trisyllable particles ending 

 in "ing." For example, "blossoming," "ripening," "carolling/' 

 "torturing," " humbuging," and so on. But touching the touching 

 pathos of the word " thing." I have been oftimes affected even 

 unto tears, when I have read of an Italian miss in her teens intended 

 by the poetical exporter for " home consumption ;" that is to say, 

 for rapid consumption in her own " southern home." Upon such 

 occasions, it is usual to speak of the perishing young person as a 

 "fair thing," "that gentle thing," "that beauteous thing." To 

 you, my young friends, not so fully conversant with these matters as 

 myself, it might appear to be a term of a rather scurvy and degrading 

 character, but it is not so. You might urge that things were not 

 persons, and. that persons are not things. But by your leave, I shall 

 shew you the contrary, and also convince you that a human being 

 may be called nay, may actually be a thing and at the same time 

 be looked up to with vast and deferential respect. Things are not 

 persons, I grant you, but persons are things. What is Sir Robert 

 Peel at the present moment, I beg to ask you, but a thing turned to 

 account by the Duke of Wellington ; and yet Sir Robert Peel is a 

 very respectable man, nevertheless. Now, mark the pathos residing 

 in the word. When I address Sir Robert thus : " thou foolish 

 thing," or speak of him as " that wretched thing," is there not some- 

 thing affecting in the phrase ? Undoubtedly. Whenever, therefore, 

 you would pump up pathos call a person a thing. Do not be all 

 things to all men, but let all mankind be things. 



Of course, you are none of you such Neophytes as not to know to 

 what use the sun, moon, and stars may be turned. You know very 

 well that Phoebus is the sun, and that you cannot drag your descrip- 

 tion before the reader without the accustomed horses. Remember 

 particularly, also, that the other luminary must always be termed 

 " the silver moon ;" although, why it is so called, hang me, my good 

 friends, if I can tell you. It appears to me to look much more like 

 a brass button after a twelvemonth's wear, than a half-crown piece ; 

 but as I am not the man in the moon, or a man in the moon's secrets, 

 I cannot say why it has been decided to fancy in it a resemblance to 

 silver. 



To conclude, for I perceive that I have now only half-a-minute to 

 spare I shall very intelligibly point out to you how you may be- 

 come popularly acceptable, if not permanent favourites with the 

 world. Words are supposed at all events to mean something ; write 

 plentiful words, and if the country cannot understand you shake 

 your head knowingly smile significantly, but say nothing. Had you 

 given them sense also, ten to one but they would have mistaken it 

 for nonsense : give them nonsense, and ten to one they reverse the 

 mistake, and consider it very fine. And yet, why should I take it 

 for granted that you must write nonsense. There is reason in the 

 roasting of eggs there is ingenuity in the putting together of words. 

 And as the finest sense the most brilliant wit the most profound 

 philosophy is made intelligible by words; and since words, quaisi 



