It may be urged that the congressional “eulogy” expresses in a general way the eulogist’s notion of what he would like to have somebody say of himself when he is by death elected to the Lower House. If so, then Heaven help him to a better taste; but meanwhile it is a patriotic duty to prevent him from indulging at the public expense the taste that he has. There have been a few men in congress who could speak of the character and services of a departed member with truth and even eloquence. Of many others, the most charitable thing that one can conscientiously say is that one would a little rather hear a “eulogy” by them than of them. Considering that there are many kinds of brains and only one kind of no brains, their diversity of gifts is remarkable, but one characteristic they have in common: they are all poets. Their efforts in the way of eulogium illustrate and illuminate Pascal’s obscure saying that poetry is a particular sadness. If not sad themselves, they are at least the cause of sadness in others, for no sooner do they take to their legs to remind us that life is fleeting, and to make us glad that it is, than they burst into bloom as poets all! Some one has said that in the contemplation of death there is something that belittles. Perhaps that explains the transformation. Anyhow the congressional eulogist takes to verse as naturally as a moth to a candle, and with about the same result to his reputation for sense. The poetry is commonly not his own; when it violates every law of sense, fitness, metre, rhyme and taste it is. But nine times in ten it is some dog’s-eared, shop-worn quotation from one of the “standard” bards, usually Shakspeare. There are familiar passages from that poet which have been so often heard in “the halls of legislation” that they have acquired an infamy which unfits them for publication in a decent family newspaper; and Shakspeare himself, reposing in Elysium on his bed of asphodel, omits them when reading his complete works to the shades of Kit Marlowe and Ben Jonson, for their sins.