AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON POETRY. 



DELIVERED A.T THE ASINJEUM, APRIL 1, 1834, BY JEREMIAH 

 DIDDLER, ESQ. 



regret to be compelled to state that we are enabled to present 

 merely a few of the hydra heads of Mr. Diddler's preliminary dis- 

 course. We had no short-hand writer present, being, in point of 

 fact, short of hands in the stenographic department; but we are 

 given to understand that Briareus himself would have failed in an 

 attempt to do full justice to the elaborate prelection, of which we 

 now offer a rather meagre and miserable outline.] 



YOUNG GENTLEMEN, It causes no small satisfaction to bestir it- 

 self within me when I project my eye over the sea of heads which is 

 now with a kind of billowy commotion waving to and fro. I am no 

 less delighted to perceive a commendable scarcity of neckcloths in 

 the present intellectual group, a kind of " neck-or-nothing" resolu- 

 tion much to be applauded. The high and noble foreheads towering 

 in Alpine grandeur, assure me also that your razors have been called 

 into active requisition, while the scornful projection of your nether 

 lips denotes that, however ill you may succeed in an endeavour to 

 prevail upon fortune to catch you up in the mouth of fame, you 

 yourselves will never be " down in the mouth." So far so well. 

 Young gentlemen, it is said that "home is home, be it never so 

 homely." Truth is truth, be it never so disagreeable. I confess, I 

 cannot see among the profile or contour countenances among the 

 three-quarter physiognomies among the full faces about me, one 

 visage that the golden-haired Apollo would not have turned up his 

 nose at. This is a great, a sad pity. I am too well aware that in 

 modern times, such considerations are taken into weighty account, 

 and that the beauty of a poet's lines depends mainly upon his face 

 being conformable to the line of beauty. But I would not that you 

 should be disheartened. A classical nose, I grant you, is a great 

 feature ; but I would say with Shakspeare (certainly a very clever 

 man in his day) "Down with the bridge, down, down," rather than 

 your poetical fame should depend upon, or rather, depend from so 

 fortuitous a projection. The muses themselves are not so choice or 

 particular in their exactions. A nasal organ in the Grecian style 

 does not necessarily pre-suppose the power of sniffing out the source 

 of Homeric inspiration an olfactory convenience of the Roman 

 order is not therefore nervously sagacious of Virgilian eloquence. 

 A poet with a snub nose is not necessarily snubbed by the muses ; 

 and a bottle-nosed grinder of lyrics may one day become an Ana- 

 creon. Accordingly, be comforted, and severally put as good a face 

 upon the matter as niggard nature has enabled you to carry up the 

 difficult steep of the Parnassian mount. 



