I must confess to the pure delight which I have always been afforded by a beautiful poem; whereas the reading of the best speech of a Roman forensic orator, a modern parliamentary debater, or a preacher, has invariably been mingled with an unpleasant sense of disapproval of an insidious art that knows how, in matters of importance, to move people like machines to a judgement that must lose all its weight with them upon calm reﬂection.