The Stanza is sacred to sorrow.
NORTH.
"From this Stanza," quoth Mitford, "the style of the composition drops into a lower key; the language is plainer, and is not in harmony with the splendid and elaborate diction of the former part." This objection is disposed of by what I said some minutes ago——
BULLER.
Half an hour ago—on Grayishness.
NORTH.
And I have only this farther to say, gentlemen, that though the language is plainer—yet it is solemn; nor is it unpoetical—for the hoary-headed swain was moved as he spake; the style, if it drop into a lower key, is accordant with that higher key on which the music was pitched that has not yet left our hearing. An Elegy is not an Ode—the close should be mournful as the opening—with loftier strain between—and it is so; and whatever we might have to say of the Epitaph—its final lines are "awful"—as every man must have felt them to be—whether thought on in our own lonely night-room—in the Churchyard of Grantchester, where it is said Gray mused the Elegy—or by that Burial-ground in Inishail—or here afloat in the joyous sunshine for an hour privileged to be happy in a world of grief.
BULLER.
Let's change the subject, sir. May I ask what author you have in your other hand?