Worth makes the man, and want of it the f_e_llow,
  The rest is nought but leather and prun_e_lla.

Again, if there is a double rhyme to an octosyllabic verse, there are always nine syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable, thus: 

  Compound for sins that we’re incl_i_ned to,
  By damning those we have no m_i_nd to.

(’Hudibras.’)

Again, if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable; thus from ‘Hudibras’ again: 

  Then in their robes the penit_e_ntials
  Are straight presented with cred_e_ntials. 
  Remember how in arms and p_o_litics,
  We still have worsted all your h_o_ly tricks.

You will admit that these last couplets are precisely of the same structure as yours, and certainly they are octosyllabics, and made use of by Butler in an octosyllabic poem, whereas yours, to be rendered of the heroic structure, should run thus: 

  Hatching at ease succession apostolical,
  With many other falsehoods diabolical.

I have written a good deal about an oversight on your part of little consequence; but as you charged me with a mistake made in cold blood and under corrupt influences from Lake-mists, why I was determined to make the matter clear to you.  And as to the influences, if I were guilty of this mistake, or of a thousand mistakes, Wordsworth would not be guilty in me.  I think of him now, exactly as I thought of him during the first years of my friendship for you, only with an equal admiration.  He was a great poet to me always, and always, while I have a soul for poetry, will be so; yet I said, and say in an under-voice, but steadfastly, that Coleridge was the grander genius.  There is scarcely anything newer in my estimation of Wordsworth than in the colour of my eyes!

Perhaps I was wrong in saying ‘a pun.’ But I thought I apprehended a double sense in your application of the term ‘Apostolical succession’ to Oxford’s ‘breeding’ and ‘hatching,’ words which imply succession in a way unecclesiastical.

After all which quarrelling, I am delighted to have to talk of your coming nearer to me—­within reach—­almost within my reach.  Now if I am able to go in a carriage at all this summer, it will be hard but that I manage to get across the park and serenade you in Greek under your window.

Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

To H.S.  Boyd May 18, 1843.

My very dear Friend,—­Yes, you have surprised me!

I always have thought of you, and I always think and say, that you are truthful and candid in a supreme degree, and therefore it is not your candour about Wordsworth which surprises me.

He had the kindness to send me the poem upon Grace Darling when it first appeared; and with a curious mixture of feelings (for I was much gratified by his attention in sending it) I yet read it with so much pain from the nature of the subject, that my judgment was scarcely free to consider the poetry—­I could scarcely determine to myself what I thought of it from feeling too much.