gentleman."']




LECTURE III.

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VERSE AND PROSE

Wednesday, February 26


You will forgive me, Gentlemen, that having in my second lecture
encouraged you to the practice of verse as well as of prose, I seize the
very next opportunity to warn you against confusing the two, which differ
on some points essentially, and always so as to demand separate rules--or
rather (since I am shy of the word 'rules') a different concept of what
the writer should aim at and what avoid. But you must, pray, understand
that what follows will be more useful to the tiro in prose than to the
tiro in verse; for while even a lecturer may help you to avoid writing
prose in the manner of Milton, only the gods--and they hardly--can cure a
versifier of being prosaic.

We started upon a promise to do without scientific definitions; and in
drawing some distinctions to-day between verse and prose I shall use only
a few rough ones; good, as I hope, so far as they go; not to be found
contrary to your scientific ones, if ever, under another teacher you
attain to them; yet for the moment used only as guides to practice, and
pretending to be no more.