80 AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POETRY. 



became pillars, with a handsome capital so shall I shew you how, 

 by the discreet use of certain current coin of the Parnassian realm, 

 you may win and wear a whole grove of laurel and bays. 



In the first place, it is especially worthy of remark that there are a 

 vast number of neat turns of expression a multitude of stock similes 

 a tribe of unexceptionable metaphors an infinite field of perennial 

 figures, which are not only open to your inspection, not merely sub- 

 mitted for your approval, but obedient to your grasp. They are the 

 ferae natures of poets ; and may not only be caught in your springe, 

 brought down by your popgun, but knocked on the head by your 

 fanciful and melodious lyre. Now, my young friends, you would 

 not only be considered over-fastidious were you to refuse to bag this 

 legitimate game, but you would lay yourselves open to the imputa- 

 tion of being factious and revolutionary. That principle which holds 

 good in politics is equally valid in poetry. Let us see no innovation 

 let us not hear, for a moment, the word Reform. Stick to the con- 

 stitution of poetry, as you find it preserve it, if possible; and what 

 better means of preserving it than by furnishing it with the identical 

 food to which it has been so long accustomed ? But if which the 

 muses forbid some daring innovator should venture to hint a doubt 

 of its present perfect state, and should presume to make some radical 

 changes in its system, oppose them with all your might ; say, or sing, 

 or whistle a dirge over its departed glories; and when you have 

 turned out the innovators, turn over a new leaf read out of their 

 book, profess to carry out their principles, if you can and, if you 

 are able, act in their spirit in a word, drive your hogs to the best 

 market. 



And now, young gentlemen, I shall very briefly, indeed for the 

 clock instructs me that my hour is almost come, when I to boiled 

 tripe and onions must render up myself, at the Cow and Cauliflower 

 very briefly, I say, shall I present to you a few instances of these 

 eternal availabilities (to coin another word), leaving yourselves, with 

 your memories, your occasional reading, your assiduous search, to 

 discover the rest. 



If, for instance, it should be your cue to dilate upon the distressing 

 situation of your blighted and broken spirit ; if your extreme wretch- 

 edness, whether arising from a tailor's or a washerwoman's bill, a 

 dun looming in the distance, or a bailiff at projection- and should 

 you be led to fear, and, in point of fact, to believe, that your peace of 

 mind will never return wind up your Jeremiad by likening your 

 departed peace to the dove that proceeded out of the ark, and at last 

 never came back again. That dove, gentlemen, has been of more use 

 to modern poets than it ever was to Noah. It has made itself gene- 

 rally useful, it is always at command ; it may bring nothing with it 

 the first time, but it will return, if not with an olive branch, at least, 

 with an olive leaf, from the critics, on the second ; and it will return 

 as often as you please to put it forth. The dove, my friends, is a 

 noble bird, on the whole, I should be disposed to say, superior to the 

 nightingale for poetical purposes. The Roman Capitol was saved by 

 a flock of geese; but how many flocks of geese have these admirable 

 birds preserved ! 



