owels rhyme, whilst the consonants are
disregarded, then this is termed imperfect concordance.

5. Termination required the final word of each couplet to be one syllable
longer than the final word in the preceding line.

6. Union is another essential. Similar to correspondence, in some
respects, the same vowels need not be repeated--it suffices that they
belong to the same class; the final word of one line chimes with a central
word in the next.

There are other rules besides, but these are surely enough to prove that
classic Irish verse was an extremely elaborate affair. It would be
impossible to adapt the English language to verse so intricate. Its
existence betrayed a highly refined development of the organs of speech
and of hearing, which latter is what we should expect from the musical
taste and skill of the race. From such rules, we can readily understand
that the bardic corporation was competent to carry this refinement of
technic, and to develop an intricacy of meaning to such a degree, that
the outer world required an explanation. Some of the poems of Seancan
Torpeist, in the seventh century, were quite as unintelligible as the most
obscure of Browning's, but, unlike Browning, he was always able to
translate them to a puzzled prince. Poets seemed to have a natural
tendency in the direction of over-elaboration; they had been judges until
they developed technicalities and an artificial law language, so that
neither suitors nor audience could understand them. Then the princes
interposed, adding laymen to the court. With their poetic tongue there was
no interference, until it had been unduly exercised in oppressing the
chiefs.

Now, if we examine the mechanism of any of these elaborate verses, we
shall perceive that it contains a lesson greater than has been hitherto
noticed. Open the Book of Kells and look at one of the initial letters,
with its wonderful intricacy of interwoven lines, its exquisite grace of
form, and marvellous delicacy of tint. The first glance shows it to be a
beautiful work of art, and at once we recognise that it must have been
produced by men whose minds, eyes, and hands had been cultivated to the
highest degree. It is not the product of the training and refining of an
individual or of a generation, but of a series of successive individuals
in many generations. Than some of these initial letters nothing of the
kind seems to have ever been made so beautiful before, nor anything since.
Thu