c can mean by "polished numbers, freedom, and spirit." The
passage is curious:--

"By your first criticism, _polished numbers_, if you mean melodious
versification, this perhaps the general ear will not deny me. If you
mean classical, chaste diction, free from tautologous repetitions of
the same thoughts in different expressions; free from bad rhymes,
unnecessary epithets, and incongruous metaphors, I believe you may be
safely challenged to produce many instances wherein I have failed.

"By _freedom_, your second criterion, if you mean daring transition,
or arbitrary and desultory disposition of ideas, however this may
be required in the greater ode, it is now, I believe, for the first
time, expected in the lesser ode. If you mean that careless, diffuse
composition, that conversation-verse, or verse loitering into
prose, now so fashionable, this is an excellence which I am not
very ambitious of attaining. But if you mean strong, concise, yet
natural easy expression, I apprehend the general judgment will decide
in my favour. To the general ear, and the general judgment, then, do
I appeal as to an impartial tribunal." Here several odes are
transcribed. "By _spirit_, your third criticism, I know nothing you
can mean but enthusiasm; that which transports us to every scene, and
interests us in every sentiment. Poetry without this cannot subsist;
every species demands its proportion, from the greater ode, of which
it is the principal characteristic, to the lesser, in which a
small portion of it only has hitherto been thought requisite. My
productions, I apprehend, have never before been deemed destitute
of this essential constituent. Whatever I have wrote, I have felt,
and I believe others have felt it also."

On "the Epistles," which had been condemned in the gross, suddenly the
critic turns round courteously to the bard, declaring "they are
written in an easy and familiar style, and seem to flow from a good
and a benevolent heart." But then sneeringly adds, that one of them
being entitled "An Essay on Painting, addressed to a young Artist,
had better have been omitted, because it had been so fully treated in
so masterly a manner by Mr. Hayley." This was letting fall a spark in
a barrel of gunpowder. Scott immediately analyses his brother poet's
poem, to show they have nothing in common; and then compares those
similar passages the subject naturally produced, to show that "his
poem does not suffer greatly in the compariso