r syllables in the
whole passage, first pronouncing the kingly "we" at its proudest, and
then the "are" as a continuous state, and then the "glad," as the exact
contrary of what the ambassadors expected him to be.[80]

D. Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and necessarily as the
heart beats. The king _cannot_ speak otherwise than he does--nor the
hero. The words not merely come to them, but are compelled to them. Even
lisping numbers "come," but mighty numbers are ordained, and inspired.

E. Melody in the words, changeable with their passion, fitted to it
exactly, and the utmost of which the language is capable--the melody in
prose being Eolian and variable--in verse, nobler by submitting itself
to stricter law. I will enlarge upon this point presently.

F. Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that each carries not only
its instant meaning, but a cloudy companionship of higher or darker
meaning according to the passion--nearly always indicated by metaphor:
"play a set"--sometimes by abstraction--(thus in the second passage
"silence" for silent one) sometimes by description instead of direct
epithet ("coffined" for dead) but always indicative of there being more
in the speaker's mind than he has said, or than he can say, full though
his saying be. On the quantity of this attendant fullness depends the
majesty of style; that is to say, virtually, on the quantity of
contained thought in briefest words, such thought being primarily loving
and true: and this the sum of all--that nothing can be well said, but
with truth, nor beautifully, but by love.

68. These are the essential conditions of noble speech in prose and
verse alike, but the adoption of the form of verse, and especially rymed
verse, means the addition to all these qualities of one more; of music,
that is to say, not Eolian merely, but Apolline; a construction or
architecture of words fitted and befitting, under external laws of time
and harmony.

When Byron says "rhyme is of the rude,"[81] he means that Burns needs
it,--while Henry the Fifth does not, nor Plato, nor Isaiah--yet in this
need of it by the simple, it becomes all the more religious: and thus
the loveliest pieces of Christian language are all in ryme--the best of
Dante, Chaucer, Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney.

69. I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of modern
scholarship; (nor, to say the truth, do I make the effort, the first
edge of its waves being mo