As the children of nature, we are akin not only to the stars and flowers, but also to the toad-stools and the monstrous tropical birds.

And it is to be repeated as the essential of the question that on this side of our nature we do emphatically love the form of the toad-stools, and not merely some complicated botanical and moral lessons which the philosopher may draw from them.

For example, just as there is such a thing as a poetical metre being beautifully light or beautifully grave and haunting, so there is such a thing as a poetical metre being beautifully rugged.

In the old ballads, for instance, every person of literary taste will be struck by a certain attractiveness in the bold, varying, irregular verse-- "He is either himsell a devil frae hell, Or else his mother a witch maun be; I wadna have ridden that wan water For a' the gowd in Christentie," is quite as pleasing to the ear in its own way as "There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer stream, And the nightingale sings in it all the night long," is in another way.

Browning had an unrivalled ear for this particular kind of staccato music.