THE VERSE. [A]

THE measure is English heroick verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; rime being no neceffary adjunct, or true ornament, of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age to fet off wretched matter and lame metre; graced indeed fince by the use of fome famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than elfe they would have expreffed them. Not without caufe, therefore, fome both [B] Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and shorter works: as have alfo long fince our beft [c] English tragedies as a

thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which confifts only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the fense variously drawn out from one verse into another; not in the jingling found of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned Ancients, both in [D] poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rime fo little is to be taken for

[E] defect, though it may feem fo perhaps to vulgar readers, that it is rather to be esteemed an example fet, the firft in English, of ancient liberty recovered, to heroick poem, from the troublesome and modern bondage of riming.

[A] The Verfe.] The firft edition of Paradife Loft, in 1667, was without this preface, or apology for the verfc. In 1668, when a new title-page was prefixed to the edition, it was added with the following addrefs of the Printer to the reader: "Courteous Reader, there was no Argument at first intended to the Book; but, for the fatisfaction of many that have defired it, I have procured it, and withal a reafon of that which stumbled many others, why the Poem rimes not." TODD.

[B] both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note] Taffo's poem on the Creation was now in Milton's mind. See likewife the Inquiry into the Origin of Par. Loft. Among the Italians alfo, Triffino and Rucellai have abandoned the ufe of rhyme; the former, in his Italia Liberata di Goti, an heroick pocm; the latter, in a didactick poem, entitled Le Api, which will remain "a lafting monument that the Italian language requires not the fhackles of rhyme to render it harmonious." Rofcoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, 2d edit. vol. ii. p. 152. Luigi Alamanni's imitation of the Antigone of Sophocles, which appeared in 1532, and his didactick pocm of Coltivazione, printed at Paris in 1546,

are both in blank verfe. The rejection of rhyme in Italian poetry was alfo powerfully urged, in the fixteenth century, by Felice Figlinei, who, in his admirable Italian commentary on the Ethicks of Ariftotle, enforces his advice by his own example, and tranflates all Ariftotle's quotations from Homer and Euripides into verfe without rhyme." Hift. of Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 24. The Georgicks of Virgil are alfo thus tranflated. "La Georgica di Vergilio con sciolti verfi tradutta in lingua Thofcana dal magnifico M. Antonio Mario Negrifoli, nobile Ferrarefe. Vinegia, 1552." Of the Origin of Verfi Sciolti among the Italians, fee Walker's Hiftorical Memoir of Italian Tragedy, 1799. Append. p. xx. Among the Spanish poets, Mr. Bowle mentions Francisco de Aldana, who tranflated the Epistles of Ovid into Spanish blank verfe; and Gonfalvo Perez, who, in like manner, tranflated the Odyffey of Homer. And he adds, that Garcilaflo de la Vega, Principe de los Poetas Caftellanos, in the Epiftola a Bofcan, folios 49, 50, 51, ed. Madrid, 1622, has given a fpecimen of blank verfe. It should be added, that Bofcan has given fimilar fpecimens in his poetry, and that there is also extant in Spanish blank verfe, a poem, entitled La Suma de Philofophia, by Alonzo de Fuentes of Seville, published there in 1547. There are alfo Dutch and French poets, who have broken the bondage of rhyme. See Fabricius, Bib. Lat. lib. ii. c. 10. p. 383.-Dr. Woodford, afferting that English poetry without rhythm is barely if at all diftinguishable from profe, adds, "Not fo the Italian and Spanish blank verfe, from whom the great and learned Mr. Milton, I believe, took his measures. For though (to instance in the Italian and their compofitions of that kind) Annibal Caro in his moft excellent tranflation of Virgil, and Torquato Taffo in his Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato, have avoided rhythms; yet they retained the proper character of the Italian verfe; I mean as to the form, equivalent to our rhythm, which ever ends with a folitary fyllable for the laft foot, unlefs we make the laft foot confift rather of three fyllables by an antibacchius, as hōrrōre cuftume, or by an amphibrachys, as in piume inante, be there rhythm used, or be there none; though if there be rhythm, the chime or tune refts both upon the last and the last fyllable fave one; by which mark or triffyllable foot indifferent to both, and the fyllabical quantities of the Italian words which approach and, except in fome few inftances, directly follow the Latme,

the Italian even blank verfe of any author, how foever written, can no more be concealed and mistaken for profe than the Latine verfe of Virgil or Ovid."—" Them the Spanish follow in their metrical compofitions, both with rhythms and without, having most frequently a folitary and fupernumerary syllable either in or for the laft foot." Pref. to Paraphrase on the Canticles, 1679. See before, p. 207. This critick is mistaken, in thinking that the French have never admitted blank verse into any kind of poem. He proceeds, however, with foretelling the downfall of blank verfe; arguing that, "if ourselves or the French will ufe blank verfe, either in an heroick poem, where they should be I think couplets;—or in ode or fonnet, &c. let us give it the character as to its form which it anciently had, a number and movement metrical, with enterchanged variety, according to the kind of our verfe, of diverfe forts of feet. But this we in English have found by the experience of Sir Philip Sidney, Ab. France, and others in the laft age, would never do; and, in the next, even our now cry'd-up blank verse will look as unfashionable, how well foever as a novelty, and upon his credit who was the inventer of it here, it may speed in this. Not but that I have, and always had, as great an honour for Mr. Milton's Paradife Loft, as those who admire him moft, &c. Yet ftill I fay, the learned only muft and thall be judges of this, and that if he had thought fit to give it the adornments of rhythm, and not avoided them fo religiously as any one may perceive he now and then does, to the debafing of his great fenfe; it had been fo abfolute a piece, that, in spight of whatever the world Heathen or Christian hitherto has seen, it must have remain'd as the standard to all fucceeding poets and poefy."-The prophetical period has long fince elapfed; and yet the general decifion has not pronounced the blank verfe of Milton unfashionable, or buried the author under his own majestick ruins. His credit remains unfhaken. From thofe who, to mention the avowal of the learned author of a late Inquiry into the Principles of Tafte, tug at the oar in perufing his noble poem, I may be permitted to differ; conceding to fuch, not with admiration indeed, but without envy, the indulgence of their own feelings, while I confefs myself enamoured of his various melodies, and perfuaded of the fitness of his stately and folemu verfification to his work. TODD.

[c]

our beft English tragedies:] Milton means the tragedies of Shakspeare, which he commends in Il Penferofo as having" ennobled the buskin'd stage." The first compofition in blank verse, extant in our language, is faid to be Lord Sutrey'stranflation of the second and fourth books of Virgil, in 1557; the diction and the verfification of which are highly commended' by Mr. Warton, Hift. Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 21. TODD.

[D] both in poetry and all good oratory.] Mr. Bowle obferves, that Marston, in the Scourge of Villanie, a collection of Satires, firft printed at London in 1598, after the Proëmium in librum fecundum, has fome verses ad rithmum, from which the following may be here cited:

"Alas! poor idle found:

"Since first I Phoebus knew, I never found

"Thy intereft in facred poefie.

"Thou to invention addst but furquedry,

"A gaudie ornature; but haft no part

"In that foule-pleafing high-infufed art." TODD.

[E] fo little is to be taken for a defect,] As Roger Afcham fays in his Scholemaster, written about the year 1566, where he is praising the good judgement of Lord Surrey in avoyding the fault of ryming: "And therefore, even as Virgill and Horace deferve moft worthie prayfe, that they, fpying the unperfitnefs in Ennius and Plautus, by trewe imitation of Homer and Euripides, brought poetrie to the fame perfectnes in Latin as it was in Greeke, even. fo thofe, that by the fame way would benefit their tong and country, deferve rather thankes than difprayfe." See Hift. Eng. Poetry, vol. iii. p. 25.-And fee note [B.]. Yet Milton's "neglect of rime," we obferve, has been confidered as a defect; and by fome, with officious anxiety for the fame of Milton, has been commuted into pretended "necessary jinglings." The Fall of Man by Dryden was perhaps the firft attempt of the kind; which serves to exhibit the correfponding paffages of Milton with redoubled luftre. To this fucceeded the production of Edward Eccleftone, gent. entitled Noah's Flood, an Opera, in 1679; afterwards published with the fonorous appellation of The Cataclyfm! Of this tuneful bard it is faid by one of his eulogists, in the verfes prefixed to the Opera, that