_Lear._

Unexpected locations of the accent double this force, and render it
characteristic of passion and abruptness. And here comes into play the
reader's corresponding fineness of ear, and his retardations and
accelerations in accordance with those of the poet:

Then in the keyhole turns
The intr[)i]c[)a]te wards, and every bolt and bar
Unfastens.--On [)a] s[)u]dd[)e]n open fly
W[)i]th [)i]mpetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

_Paradise Lost_, Book II.

Abom[)i]n[)a]bl[)e]--unutt[)e]r[)a]bl[)e]--and worse
Than fables yet have feigned.

_Id._

Wall[)o]w[)i]ng [)u]nwi[)e]ldy--[)e]normous in their gait.

_Id._

Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in the
_Faerie Queene_, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross
Knight:

But he, my lion, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruel heart to hate
Her that him lov'd, and ever most ador'd
_As the god of my life?_[30] Why hath he me abhorr'd?

[30] Pray let not the reader consent to read this first half
of the line in any manner less marked and peremptory. It is a
striking instance of the beauty of that 'acceleration and
retardation of true verse' which Coleridge speaks of. There
is to be a hurry on the words _as the_, and a passionate
emphasis and passing stop on the word _god_; and so of the
next three words.

The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is
weakness. There is a noble sentiment--it appears both in Daniel's and
Sir John Beaumont's works, but is most probably the latter's,--which
is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words:

Only the firmest and the _constant'st_ hearts
God sets to act the _stout'st_ and hardest parts.

_Stout'st_ and _constant'st_ for 'stoutest' and 'most constant'! It is
as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line in _Hudibras_:

He that hangs or _beats out's_ brains,
The devil's in him if _he_ feigns.

_Beats out's brains_, for 'beats out his brains'. Of heaviness,
Davenant's _Gondibert_ is a formidable specimen, almost throughout:

With silence (order's help, and mark of care)
They chide that noise which heedless youth affect;
Still