tablet. Yet the earlier Calliope, the Calliope of Homer, was a Muse of
Song.

[Greek: Menin aeide, Thea--]

'Had I a thousand tongues, a thousand hands.'--For what purpose does the
poet wish for a thousand tongues, but to sing? for what purpose a
thousand hands, but to pluck the wires? not to dip a thousand pens in a
thousand inkpots.

I doubt, in fine, if your most learned studies will discover much amiss
with the frontier we drew between verse and prose, cursorily though we
ran its line. Nor am I daunted on comparing it with Coleridge's more
philosophical one, which you will find in the "Biographia Literaria"
(c. XVIII)--

And first for the origin of metre. This I would trace to the balance
in the mind effected by that spontaneous effort which strives to
hold in check the workings of passion. It might be easily explained
likewise in what manner this salutary antagonism is assisted by the
very state which it counteracts, and how this balance of antagonism
becomes organised into metre (in the usual acceptation of that term)
by a supervening act of the will and judgment consciously and for
the foreseen purpose of pleasure.

I will not swear to understand precisely what Coleridge means here,
though I believe that I do. But at any rate, and on the principle that of
two hypotheses, each in itself adequate, we should choose the simpler, I
suggest in all modesty that we shall do better with our own than with
Coleridge's, which has the further disadvantage of being scarcely
amenable to positive evidence. We can say with historical warrant that
Sappho struck the lyre, and argue therefrom, still within close range of
correction, that her singing responded to the instrument: whereas to
assert that Sappho's mind 'was balanced by a spontaneous effort which
strove to hold in check the workings of passion' is to say something for
which positive evidence will be less handily found, whether to contradict
or to support.

Yet if you choose to prefer Coleridge's explanation, no great harm will
be done: since Coleridge, who may be presumed to have understood it,
promptly goes on to deduce that,

as the elements of metre owe their existence to a state of increased
excitement, so the metre itself should be accompanied by the natural
language of excitement.

which is precisely where we found ourselves, save that where Coleridge
uses the word 'excitement' we used the word '