should prevail.

The determination never to sacrifice sense to sound is the secret of
whatever repels us in Mr. Browning's verse, and also of whatever
attracts. Wherever in it sense keeps company with sound, we have a music
far deeper than can arise from mere sound, or even from a flow of real
lyric emotion, which has its only counterpart _in_ sound. It is in the
idea, and of it. It is the brain picture beating itself into words.

The technical rules by which Mr. Browning works, carry out his principle
to the fullest extent.

I. He uses the smallest number of words which his meaning allows; is
particularly sparing in adjectives.

II. He uses the largest _relative_ number of Saxon (therefore
picturesque) words.[4]

III. He uses monosyllabic words wherever this is possible.

IV. He farther condenses his style by abbreviations and omissions, of
which some are discarded, but all warranted by authority: "in," "on,"
and "of," for instance, become "i'," "o'," and "o'." Pronouns, articles,
conjunctions, and prepositions are, on the same principle, occasionally
left out.

V. He treats consonants as the backbone of the language, and hence, as
the essential feature in a rhyme; and never allows the repetition of a
consonant in a rhyme to be modified by a change in the preceding vowel,
or by the recurrence of the rhyming syllable in a different word--or the