A rather hackneyed subject, too.

There is not a more hackneyed subject for poetic enthusiasm than that sight-perhapsthe loveliest in nature- ayoungmother with her first-born child.

The nude red man was a hackneyed subject, but Brown Bear with his robe, afforded precisely the stimulus of which he stood in need.

Of hackneyed subjects, a foremost place may be assigned to the Art of Study.

I take "Difficile est proprie communia dicere" in its ordinary sense, "It is hard to treat hackneyed subjects with originality."

The next great essay which Carlyle published, this time in the Edinburgh Review, was on Burns,- ahackneyedsubject, yet treated with masterly ability.

"Oh yes, I remember it now, 'The Thames at Sonning.' Still, it was a hackneyed subject, although reasonably well treated."