An Original Dissertation On Public Speaking.

pulpit—as no foreign politician can beat our average county member on the floor of the House , iu grace of expression , appropriateness of gesture , in trite allusions , moral platitudes , or polemical twaddle . Most people think they can speak . I

know numbers who fancy they could ' compose a better sermon than the parson ; let them try it . Many of us flatter ourselves that we could write a novel ; not a few have an idea that they could an excellent

pen leader , equal to the Times , and nearly as good as the Daily Telegraph ( oh ! wonderful agglomeration of fine sounding words !) and I dare say there are numbers even in this intellectual audience . * who

sometime or other in their lives thought they were fated to be poets . I had an attack of that sort myself once , but then I was iu love , and much may be excused under such circumstances . Josh Billings said , he thought it was his

manifest destiny to be a poet . He = ays : " I sent a speciment of the disease to the editor of our paper . The editor wrote me next clay as follows : Dear Sir—You may be a d fule , bat you are no poeck ! " I have come across many poets , mute inglorious Milton ' s , iu my time as who has not ?

I remember once an infliction of that sort . I stumbled upon an acquaintance whom I had learnt was on the point of publishing a volume of his poems . "Ah , Air , , " said I , "didn ' tknow

you were a poet , never had the pleasure of seeing anything of yours . " " Oh , didn't you , "he replied with alacrity , " I think I have a bit here you will like , original iu subject and design as in metre , I flatter myself . "

It was a poem on Rest or Contentment or something of that sort , vapid mediocre rhyme , and as much like poetry- as Tupper is like Solomon . "Ah , " said I , after reading it , and handing it back to himwishing to be

, gratefulfor theprivilege , and complimentary to the author , " excellent poem ; very like Gray ' s Elegy ! " There was a wishy-washy resemblance , like the two-penny photograph of a lovely view .

" Indeed , he replied ; " Ah , very likely ; but / never read Gray ! The fact is . I have been told some of my poems are like Crabbe , but I never read Crabbe . Now , only the other day , I was told , a piece of mine was like Milton ' s . I loas so annoyed that I altered it at once . The fact is , my poems are original . I copy no man ' s subjects ; metre , everything is new about them !"

' Pray what are the principal subjects you have written upon , " I asked with curiosity 1 " AVell , I have a poem on Peace , another on Joy ; then I have Fear , Hate , Love , Friendship ( friendship is very fine ) , anil ' othsrs . Perhaps you would like to have a look at them ? "

Hastily pleading an important engagement I withdrew , aud went off wondering to myself if those poems were published what sort of people would read them , aud whether any- stray copies would go to the butter shop or greengrocers ' . But to return to our subject . As I said

before , we most of us fancy we are something that we are not , and many a man who thinks he is a brilliant speaker has missed his vocation , and ought to have been a cheap John . We never know when we may he called

upon to speak on some occasion or other , at a funeral , at a wedding , at a missionary meeting , or at a lecture . '' An old friend of mine , a lawyer , and a much respected one too , by the way ( I suppose the phrase is not tautological ) , once took the

chimin the little country town where he resided , on the occasion of Henry Vincent ' s giving a lecture there on " The United States . " My friend remarked , in introducing the lecturer , that he had always felt a peculiar interest in America , since his only surviving

brother was buried there 1 He did not often preside at lectures . It is said of a great county member who lived not so very long ago , that he spoke once in the House , and a very fine speech it was . " M r . Speaker ; humm , ha ! Mr . Speaker : I move , ha that the window above mv head be closed I "

In a neighbouring town , not long since , when they where discussing the late accident in London on the Regent ' s Canal through an explosion of gunpowder , and