LECTURE IV.

ON THE CAPITAL DIFFICULTY OF VERSE

Thursday, April 17


In our last lecture, Gentlemen, we discussed the difference between
verse, or metrical writing, and prose. We traced that difference (as you
will remember) to Music--to the harp, the lyre, the dance, the chorus,
all those first necessary accompaniments which verse never quite forgets;
and we concluded that, as Music ever introduces emotion, which is indeed
her proper and only means of persuading, so the natural language of verse
will be keyed higher than the natural language of prose; will be keyed
higher throughout and even for its most ordinary purposes--as for
example, to tell us that So-and-so sailed to Troy with so many ships.

I grant you that our steps to this conclusion were lightly and rapidly
taken: yet the stepping-stones are historically firm. Verse does precede
prose in literature; verse does start with musical accompaniment; musical
accompaniment does introduce emotion; and emotion does introduce an order
of its own into speech. I grant you that we have travelled far from the
days when a prose-writer, Herodotus, labelled the books of his history by
the names of the nine Muses. I grant you that if you go to the Vatican
and there study the statues of the Muses (noble, but of no early date)
you may note that Calliope, Muse of the Epic--unlike her sisters Euterpe,
Erato, Thalia--holds for symbol no instrument of music, but a stylus and
a tablet. Yet the earlier Calliope, the Calliope of Homer, was a Muse of