AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POKTRY. 



What, then, are we to expect for the effusions of men of genius like 

 yourselves, when folly itself is at a discount ? an article for ever in 

 request, arid a commodity, the consumption of which, one might na- 

 turally suppose, would always continue at least equal to the pro- 

 duction. To repeat more emphatically what I have before, perhaps, 

 vaguely hinted at, I shall say that as prophets are never attended to 

 in their own country, so your profits will never be attended to by 

 your own countrymen. If you pursue poetry, you must expect to 

 dine (do not change colour) with the chameleon, or with a certain 

 nobleman commonly called " Duke Humphrey." In the English lan- 

 guage there is no rhyme for silver ; in the English territory there is 

 no silver for rhyme. It would be insulting vulgarity were I to tell 

 you to " stop the Duke," and to <{ run for gold." Alas ! it were as 

 vain an attempt to thread a camel through a needle, as to move that 

 great beast in Threadneedle-street. It is not " i'th' vein" for the 

 production of gold. It would not accept your bill at three centuries 

 after date, even were you to offer to renew it to doomsday. 



But if which, pardon me for believing to be highly probable 

 you are, nevertheless, and in spite of all secular discouragements, de- 

 termined to persevere in thrumming the Apollonian harp with assi- 

 duous thumb-nail ; if, after all, you feel resolved to 



" Strictly meditate the thankless muse ;" 



if you will melodize (to coin a word) the tongues in trees, if you will 

 versify sermons out of stones, and make books, intended to have a 

 run, out of brooks, running unintentionally j then, and in that case, 

 let me briefly lay before you a few short, simple, and golden rules, 

 whereby you may effect these things with an absolute certainty of 

 popular appreciation. It was written of a great poet, with whom you 

 are equal in the no-neckcloth and high-forehead branches of the art 



" So were you equalled with him in renown;" 



it was thus written, I say, of the productions of this vast geuius, with 

 a view, I fear, to stigmatize his lucubrations : 



" A lyre with one string, and a muse in the sulks, 

 And phrenzy, and passion, and rodomontade, 

 And a hero that ought to be sent to the hulks, 

 And a sneer at mankind and your poem is made." 



But this, which cannot be said to be truly, or to the whole extent, 

 applicable to Lord Byron, may, at any rate, serve as a guide and 

 direction to you. Keep harping upon one string set up a monotonous 

 whine start with a perpetually recurring roar, and you create a sen- 

 sation. If you propose to yourselves to furnish forth a variety of 

 wretchedness, let it be " alike, but, oh ! how different, md different, 

 but, oh ! how alike !" Let a large assortment of curious figures be 

 manufactured out of the same machinery. And now, my young 

 friends, as in the world of Mammon, we frequently are told of per- 

 sons who have risen from nothing of individuals who, when they 

 first entered life were not worth a fig, and when they departed it, 

 were possessed of a plum of men who, when they first commenced 

 business, were driven from pillar to post, and afterwards themselves 



