They had discovered the one trustworthy and
indisputable method, so easy and so simple that it must now seem
wonderful it should never have been discovered before, by which to pluck
out the heart of the poet's mystery and detect the secret of his touch;
the study of Shakespeare by rule of thumb. Every man, woman, and child
born with five fingers on each hand was henceforward better qualified as
a critic than any poet or scholar of time past. But it was not, whatever
outsiders might pretend to think, exclusively on the verse-test, as it
had facetiously been called on account of its total incompatibility with
any conceivable scheme of metre or principle of rhythm--it was not
exclusively on this precious and unanswerable test that they relied.
Within the Society as well as without, the pretensions of those who would
acknowledge no other means of deciding on debated questions had been
refuted and repelled. What were the other means of investigation and
verification in which not less than in the metrical test they were
accustomed to put their faith, and by which they doubted not to attain in
the future even more remarkable results than their researches had as yet
achieved, the debate just concluded, in common with every other for which
they ever had met or ever were likely to meet, would amply suffice to
show.
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