Note 4 — INTRODUCTION TO NATHANIEL WHITING.

As an instance here, take the incident where the false Phaeliche, coming to the nunnery, sees the masons mending the breaches that Rivelezzo's cannon had made. It is a mere touch, awkward and only half intelligible in the verse. Less than two centuries later Scott would have given a lively page and a half of prose description of the scene, with dialogue thrown in. On the other hand, in prose, the extravagances of the phrase and the incoherences of the story would have had a better chance of being mended.