actually met with such snake-gods, and felt themselves bound, like Southey’s Madoc, or Daniel in the old rabbinical story, whose truth has never been disproved, to destroy the monsters at all risk.  We see no reason, either, why their righteous daring may not have been crowned with victory; and suspect that on such events were gradually built up the dragon-slaying legends which charmed all Europe, and grew in extravagances and absurdities, till they began to degenerate into the bombast of the “Seven Champions,” and expired in the immortal ballad of the “Dragon of Wantley,” in which More of More Hall, on the morning of his battle with the monster, invoked the saints no more, but—­

To make him strong and mighty—­
   He drank by the tale
   Six pots of ale
And a quart of aqua-vitae.

So ended the sublime sport of dragon-slaying.  Its only remnant may now be seen in Borneo, whither that noble Christian man, Bishop Macdougall, took out the other day a six-chambered rifle, on the ground that “while the alligators ate his school-children at Sarawak, it was his duty as a bishop to shoot the alligators.”

ON ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Introductory Lectures given at Queen’s College, London, 1848.

An introductory lecture on English composition is, I think, as much needed as one on any other subject taught in this College.  For in the first place, I am not sure whether we all mean the same thing when we speak of English composition; and in the next place, I believe that pupils themselves are very often best able to tell their teachers what sort of instruction they require.  I purpose therefore to-day, not only to explain freely my intentions with regard to this course of lectures, but to ask you to explain freely your own wants.

I must suppose, however, that the ladies who attend here wish to be taught how to write English better.  Now the art of writing English is, I should say, the art of speaking English, and speech may be used for any one of three purposes:  to conceal thought, as the French diplomatist defined its use; to conceal the want of thought, as the majority of popular writers and orators seem nowadays to employ it; or, again, to express thought, which would seem to have been the original destination of the gift of language.  I am therefore, I suppose, in duty bound to take for granted that you come here to be taught to express your thoughts better.

The whole matter then will very much depend on what thoughts you have to express.  For the form of the symbol must depend on the form of the thing symbolised, as the medal does upon its die; and thus style and language are the sacraments of thoughts, the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace, or want of grace, in the writer.  And even where language is employed to conceal either thought, or want thereof, it generally tells a truer tale than it was meant to do.  Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth must speak, and the hollowness or foolishness of the spirit will show itself, in spite of all cunning sleights, in unconscious peculiarities or defects of style.