of York, of a good family,
though not of that county; my father being a foreigner of Bremen,
who settled first in Hull.--[_Defoe._]

or

Further I avow to your Highness that with these eyes I have beheld
the person of William Wooton, B.D., who has written a good sizeable
volume against a friend of your Governor (from whom, alas! he must
therefore look for little favour) in a most gentlemanly style,
adorned with the utmost politeness and civility.--[_Swift._]

The natural order of poetry is:--

Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summer's Rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.

or

But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw.

and this basal difference you must have clear in your minds before, in
dealing with prose or verse, you can practise either with profit or read
either with intelligent delight.

LECTURE IV.

ON THE CAPITAL DIFFICULTY OF VERSE

Thursday, April 17

In our last lecture, Gentlemen, we discussed the difference between
verse, or metrical writing, and prose. We traced that difference (as you
will remember) to Music--to the harp, the lyre, the dance, the chorus,
all those first necessary accompaniments which verse never quite forgets;
and we concluded that, as Music ever introduces emotion, which is indeed
her proper and only means of persuading, so the natural language of verse
will be keyed higher than the natural language of prose; will be keyed
higher throughout and even for its most ordinary purposes--as for
example, to tell us that So-and-so sailed to Troy with so many ships.

I grant you that our steps to this conclusion were lightly and rapidly
taken: yet the stepping-stones are historically firm. Verse does precede
prose in literature; verse does start with musical accompaniment; musical
accompaniment does introduce emotion; and emotion does introduce an order
of its own into speech. I grant you that we have travelled far from the
days when a prose-writer, Herodotus, labelled the books of his history by
the names of the nine Muses. I grant you that if you go to the Vatican
and there study the statues of the Muses (noble, but of no early date)
you may note that Calliope, Muse of the Epic--unlike her sisters Euterpe,
Erato, Thalia--holds for symbol no instrument of music, but a stylus and
a