nor Esther 'the Star,' nor Susanna 'the Lily,' [Footnote: See Jacob
Grimm, _Ueber Frauennamen aus Blumen_, in his _Kleinere Schriften_, vol.
ii. pp. 366-401; and on the subject of this paragraph more generally,
Schleicher, _Die Deutsche Sprache_, p. 115 sqq.] nor Stephen 'the
Crown,' nor Albert 'the illustrious in birth.' 'In our ordinary
language,' as Montaigne has said, 'there are several excellent phrases
and metaphors to be met with, of which the beauty is withered by age,
and the colour is sullied by too common handling; but that takes
nothing from the relish to an understanding man, neither does it
derogate from the glory of those ancient authors, who, 'tis likely,
first brought those words into that lustre.' We read in one of
Moliere's most famous comedies of one who was surprised to discover
that he had been talking prose all his life without being aware of it.
If we knew all, we might be much more surprised to find that we had
been talking poetry, without ever having so much as suspected this. For
indeed poetry and passion seek to insinuate, and do insinuate
themselves everywhere in language; they preside continually at the
giving of names; they enshrine and incarnate themselves in these: for
'poetry is the mother tongue of the human race,' as a great German
writer has said. My present lecture shall contain a few examples and
illustrations, by which I would make the truth of this appear.

'Iliads without a Homer,' some one has called, with a little
exaggeration, the beautiful but anonymous ballad poetry of Spain. One
may be permitted, perhaps, to push the exaggeration a little further in
the same direction, and to apply the same language not merely to a
ballad but to a word. For poetry, which is passion and imagination
embodying themselves in words, does not necessarily demand a
_combination_ of words for this. Of this passion and imagination a
single word may be the vehicle. As the sun can image itself alike in a