reproaches even to a dignitary of the supreme Irish church; its own
monstrosity was its excuse; mere extravagance was felt to license and
accredit the little _jeu d'esprit_, precisely as the blank impossibilities
of Lilliput, of Laputa, of the Yahoos, &c., had licensed those. If,
therefore, any man thinks it worth his while to tilt against so mere a
foam-bubble of gaiety as this lecture on the aesthetics of murder, I
shelter myself for the moment under the Telamonian shield of the Dean.
But, in reality, my own little paper may plead a privileged excuse for its
extravagance, such as is altogether wanting to the Dean's. Nobody can
pretend, for a moment, on behalf of the Dean, that there is any ordinary
and natural tendency in human thoughts, which could ever turn to infants
as articles of diet; under any conceivable circumstances, this would be
felt as the most aggravated form of cannibalism--cannibalism applying
itself to the most defenceless part of the species. But, on the other
hand, the tendency to a critical or aesthetic valuation of fires and
murders is universal. If you are summoned to the spectacle of a great
fire, undoubtedly the first impulse is--to assist in putting it out. But
that field of exertion is very limited, and is soon filled by regular
professional people, trained and equipped for the service. In the case of
a fire which is operating upon _private_ property, pity for a neighbor's
calamity checks us at first in treating the affair as a scenic spectacle.
But perhaps the fire may be confined to public buildings. And in any case,
after we have paid our tribute of regret to the affair, considered as a
calamity, inevitably, and without restraint, we go on to consider it as a
stage spectacle. Exclamations of--How grand! How magnificent! arise in a
sort of rapture from the crowd. For instance, when Drury Lane was burned
down in the first decennium of this century, the falling in of the roof
was signalized by a mimic suicide of the protecting Apollo that surmounted
and crested the centre of this roof. The god was stationary with his lyre,
and seemed looking down upon the fiery ruins that were so rapidly