Just so. Verse, whenever it dare, resolves the mass of action into the individual acts, puts aside the collective doer--the Public, and puts forward individual persons. Glory, I say again, to THE HEXAMETER! BULLER. Glory to the HEXAMETER! The HEXAMETER, like the Queen, has done it all. NORTH. Or let us return to the Paradise Lost? If the mustering of the Fallen Legions in the First Book--if the Infernal Council held in the Second--if the Angelic Rebellion and Warfare in the Fifth and Sixth--resemble Public History, civil and military, as we commonly speak--if the Seventh Book, relating the Creation by describing the kinds created, be the assumption into Heroic Poetry of Natural History--to what kind of History, I earnestly ask you both, does that scene belong, of Eve's relation of her dream, in the Fifth Book, and Adam's consolation of her uneasiness under its involuntary sin? To what, in the Fourth Book, her own innocent relation of her first impressions upon awaking into Life and Consciousness? BULLER. Ay!--to what kind of History? More easily asked than answered. NORTH. And Adam's relation to the Affable Archangel of his own suddenly-dawned morning from the night of non-existence, aptly and happily crowned upon the relation made to him by Raphael in the Seventh Book of his own forming under the Omnipotent Hand? SEWARD. Simply, I venture to say, sir, to the most interior autobiography--to that confidence of audible words, which flows when the face of a friend sharpens the heart of a man--and Raphael was Adam's Friend. NORTH. Seward, you are right. You speak well--as you always do--when you choose. Behold, then, I beseech you, the comprehending power of that little magical band--_Our Accentual Iambic Pentameter_. SEWARD. "Glory be with them, and eternal praise, The Poets who on earth have made us heirs Of Truth and pure Delight by heavenly lays!" NORTH. Glory to Verse, for its power is great. Man, from the garden in Eden, to the purifying by fire of the redeemed Earth--the creation of things Visible--Angels Upright and Fallen--and Higher than Angels--all the Regions of Space--Infinitude and Eternity--the Universality of Being--this is the copious matter of the Song. And herein there is place found, proper, distinct, and large, and prominent, for that whispered call to visit, in the freshness of morning, the dropping Myrrh--to study the opening beauty of the Flowers--to watch the Bee in her sweet labour--which tenderly dissipates from the lids of Eve her ominously-troubled sleep--free room for two tears, which, falling from a woman's eyes, are wiped with her hair--and for two more, which her pitying husband kisses away ere they fall. All these things Verse disposes, and composes, in One Presentment. BULLER. Glory to Verse, for its power is great--glory to _our Accentual Iambic Pentameter_. NORTH.