equally
becoming as well as beautiful in good prose; for neither the one nor
the other has ever been either denied or doubted by any one. The true
question must be, whether there are not modes of expression, a
construction, and an order of sentences, which are in their fit and
natural place in a serious prose composition, but would be
disproportionate and heterogeneous in metrical poetry; and, vice
versa, whether in the language of a serious poem there may not be an
arrangement both of words and sentences, and a use and selection of
(what are called) _figures of speech_, both as to their kind, their
frequency, and their occasions, which on a subject of equal weight
would be vicious and alien in correct and manly prose. I contend, that
in both cases this unfitness of each for the place of the other
frequently will and ought to exist.

And first from 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 antagonists
became organized into metre (in the usual acceptation of that term) by
a supervening act of the will and judgement, consciously and for the
foreseen purpose of pleasure. Assuming these principles, as the data
of our argument, we deduce from them two legitimate conditions, which
the critic is entitled to expect in every metrical work. First, 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. Secondly, that as these elements are formed
into metre artificially, by a voluntary act, with the design and for
the purpose of blending delight with emotion, so the traces of present
volition should throughout the metrical language be proportionately
discernible. Now these two conditions must be reconciled and
co-present. There must be not only a partnership, but a union; an
interpenetration of passion and of will, of spontaneous impulse and of
voluntary purpose. Again, this union can be manifested only in a
frequency of forms and figures of speech (originally the offspring of
passion, but now the adopted children of power), greater than would be
desired or endured, where the emotion is not voluntarily encouraged
and kept up for the sake of that pleasur