conquering another difficulty, delights us with a new series of
triumphs. He follows three purposes where his rival followed only
two; and the change is of precisely the same nature as that from
melody to harmony. Or if you prefer to return to the juggler,
behold him now, to the vastly increased enthusiasm of the
spectators, juggling with three oranges instead of two. Thus it
is: added difficulty, added beauty; and the pattern, with every
fresh element, becoming more interesting in itself.

Yet it must not be thought that verse is simply an addition;
something is lost as well as something gained; and there remains
plainly traceable, in comparing the best prose with the best verse,
a certain broad distinction of method in the web. Tight as the
versifier may draw the knot of logic, yet for the ear he still
leaves the tissue of the sentence floating somewhat loose. In
prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits
into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear
remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while
in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable
passages is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior
of the rival, or, if he be not, and still persist in his more
delicate enterprise, he fails to be as widely his inferior. But
let us select them from the pages of the same writer, one who was
ambidexter; let us take, for instance, Rumour's Prologue to the
Second Part of Henry IV., a fine flourish of eloquence in
Shakespeare's second manner, and set it side by side with
Falstaff's praise of sherris, act iv. scene iii.; or let us compare
the beautiful prose spoken throughout by Rosalind and Orlando;
compare, for example, the first speech of all, Orlando's speech to
Adam, with what passage it shall please you to select--the Seven