ppjjME law in poetry. 95 



ously, or refused gently.' Most alliterative of ill-tempered 

 Tibbies ! 



' How high her honour holds her haughty head ! ' 



(Hopkxns ?) 



If you but 



' Viewed the vileness of my I'icked verse,' 



you would at once admit that there is to the full as much 

 ' generosity ' in the refusal as there could be gentleness in 

 the ' granted/ But, to speak as they do in the dog-star, 

 that is siriusly, I will tell you a fact, which you -will 



perhaps consider only in the light of a fiction, to wit 



but, in the meantime, I must go ben to my tea, for I hear 

 the 'great Tom : ' so, please, wait for the fact for five 

 minutes. 



" Well, as I was saying, I will tell you a great fact, to 

 wit, the primal and most indispensable law in the com- 

 position of poetry is that there must be a preponderance 

 botli in mind and body of pleasurable sensation, otherwise 

 the result is necessarily cold, feeble, forced, and valueless. 

 Now, cousin, notwithstanding many sources of pleasure 

 still open to me, and for which I ought to be, and in fact 

 am, very grateful, yet my usual and prevailing feelings 

 are, and, I believe, must ever be, the reverse of pleasure- 

 able ; from which statement I leave you to draw the 

 inference, that that which a man cannot write, neither 

 can he send. 



