true-filed

Updated: May 16, 2025

Ben is not now growling to Drummond of Hawthornden: he is writing a panegyric, and applauds Shakespeare's "well-turned and true-filed lines," adding that, "to write a living line" a man "must sweat," and "strike the second heat upon the Muses' anvil." To produce such lines requires labour, requires conscious "art."

Andrew Lang - Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown