wife; and the highest deference is due to the general decifion. I do not complain of Mr. Knight's not feeling Milton's mufic: but I think neither Mr. Knight or myfelf have a right to make our own feelings the teft and standard of taste and feeling in numbers."

Though it may feldom be fafe to oppofe the criticifins of Mr. Knight, yet, I am perfuaded, my herefy, in fome refpects, will find fupporters. When Mr. Knight fays, that "Hall, Donne, Hobbes, and Crafhaw are as licentious in their paufes as Milton," are we to admit the implication that Milton is a verfifier no better than these? No infinuation can be more unjuft. Nor in the anomalies of Milton's verfification, which are faftidiously termed the "ftains of negligence and ruft of antiquity," can the difcerning reader find many caufes of offence. The care, rather than the negligence, of the poet, in regard to thefe matters, may be alfo inferred from his own affertion : "This good hap I had from a careful education, to be inured and feafoned betimes with the best and eleganteft authors of the learned tongues, and thereto brought an ear that could measure a just cadence and fcan without articulating; rather nice and humourous in what was tolerable, than patient to read every drawling verfifier." We are indebted, it seems, to an "hobbling diftich" for this remarkable affertion of Milton.

To the more brilliant parts of Paradife Loft, Mr. Knight, however, concedes even the beauty of verfification; yet ftill argues, that blank verfe "requires fo many inverfions and tranfpofitions to keep it out of profe, as render it quite unfuitable to the enthusiastic fpirit and glowing fimplicity of heroic narrative."-It was an obfervation of Dr. Woodford, not long after the publication of Paradife Loft, that "though Blank Verfe, as we call it, that is, number metrical (as they would have it) without rhythm, confidering the natural fitness and customary tendence of our language, may do excellently in the drama, because it comes nearest the ordinary way of speech, wherein the interlocutors are fuppofed to converfe, &c. yet in an Epick Poem, to mention no other, I know not how with us it can be well maintained. For it wants the proper and particular character, which we affign Verfe, Rhythm I mean; and were it written as Profe ufually is, in its juft periods, would both be read, and be, as indeed it is, no other than poetical Profe, that is, mafculine Profe, dreft up like Hercules by Omphale in the attire of one of her women, but whofe fhape and warlike limbs could not be concealed by the difguife." He offers an inftance "from that moft excellent and divinely flowing' fpeech of our firft mother, in the fourth book of Paradife Loft; than which neither Milton himself ever faid any thing fofter

Effay, ut fupr. p. 121.

h Preface to a Paraphrafe upon the Canticles, &c. By Samuel Woodford, D.D. 8vo. 1679.

Par. Loft, B. iv. 440, &c.

k

and more poetical, nor can almost be imagined to be faid of man." Having exhibited this paffage * written as profe ufually is, he adds, "Who now in the world would ever dream that this were Verse, and verfe too the fofteft and moft tuneable, and with as great a walos, fuitable to the occafion, as can be conceived? I confefs fome few words, and manner of contexture, and an image of the thing different, and fome things more tender than that which Profe commonly renders, would make it fufpected that the writer was in a poetical rapture; but still, through the difguife, the profe appears, or rather cannot be hid."

I have thus stated perhaps the earlieft, as well as the latest, condemnatory criticifm on the ufage of blank verfe in an English heroick poem. Dryden 'pretends, that the true reafon why Milton wrote the Paradife Loft in blank verfe was, that Rhyme was not his talent. This is a mifreprefentation, to which no unprejudiced reader of Lycidas, or L'Allegro, or Il Penferofo, can liften with patience. However, let the reader peruse Milton's own apo

* Mr. Knight's exhibition of this kind, (B. v. 404-413.) is certainly one of the leaft tuneable paffages, although taken (he reminds us) from one of the most admired books of the poem; as it is alfo one of the few paffages, concerning which no “admirer of the irregular variety of Miltonic paufes" will be dif pofed to flight the critick's friendly hint of fcanfion.-For what purpose our American brethren adopted this method of writing blank verfe as profe in the following inftance, I am unable to fay; but it may amuse the reader to be informed of a work entitled, Pfalterium Americanum: The Pfalms in blank verfe, yet printed as profe. 12mo. Bofton, 1718.

See the dedication of his Juvenal.

logy for the verfe, which was prefixed to his " firft edition of the Paradife Loft, with a new title page, in the year following its original appearance. For an explanation of that formidable circumstance which had "ftumbled many," WHY THE POEM RIMES NOT, had, it seems, been demanded. TODD.

m Now prefixed to all editions of the Poem. See the notes on this apology in the prefent edition.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE
ORIGIN OF PARADISE LÖST.

"THE petty circumstances, by which great minds are led to the first conception of great defigns, are fo various and volatile, that nothing can be more difficult to discover: Fancy in particular is of a nature fo airy, that the traces of her step are hardly to be difcerned; ideas are fo fugitive, that if poets, in their life time, were queftioned concerning the manner in which the feeds of confiderable productions first arofe in their mind, they might not always be able to answer the inquiry can it then be poffible to fucceed in fuch an inquiry concerning a mighty genius, who has been configned more than a century to the tomb, especially when, in the records of his life, we can find no pofitive evidence on the point in queftion? However trifling the chances it may afford of fuccefs, the investigation is affuredly worthy our purfuit; for, as an accomplished critick has faid, in fpeaking of another poet, with his ufual felicity of difcernment and expreffion, the inquiry cannot be void of entertainment whilft MILTON is our conftant theme: whatever may be the fortune of the chace, we are fure it will lead us through pleafant profpects and a fine country." Hayley's Conjectures on the Origin of Paradife Loft.

TIE earlieft obfervation refpecting the Origin of Paradife Loft appears to have been made by Voltaire, in the year 1727. He was then studying in England; and had become fo well acquainted with our language as to publifh an English effay on epick poetry; in which are the following words: