Et non mortali defuper igne pluunt ; Ad pænas fugiunt, & (ceu foret ORCUS afylum!) SAM. BARROW, M. D. இே On PARADISE LOST. W HEN I beheld THE POET blind, yet bold, Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All! the argument Yet as I read, foon growing lefs fevere, Through Through that wide field how He his way fhould find, Or, if a work fo infinite He span'd Might hence prefume, the whole creation's day Pardon me, MIGHTY POET! nor despise That majefty which through Thy Work doth reign, Draws the devout, deterring the profane: And Things Divine Thou treat'st of in such state, As them preferves, and Thee inviolate. At once delight and horror on us feize, Thou fing'ft with fo much gravity and ease ; And above humane flight doft foar aloft, With plume fo ftrong, fo equal, and fo foft! The bird nam'd from that Paradise You fing So never flags, but always keeps on wing. Where couldft Thou words of fuch a compass find? Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind? Just Heav'n Thee, like TIRESIAS, to requite, Rewards with prophefy Thy loss of fight. Well might'ft Thou scorn thy readers to allure With tinkling rhyme, of Thy own fenfe fecure; While the TowN-BAYS writes all the while and fpells, ANDREW MARVELL. The VERSE. HE measure is ENGLISH Heroic Verfe without T Rhyme, as that of HOMER in Greek, and of VIR GIL in Latin; Rhyme being no neceffary adjunct, or true ornament of Poem or good verfe; in longer works efpecially but the invention of a barbarous age, to fet-off wretched matter and lame metre: grac'd indeed fince by the use of fome famous modern Poets carried away by Custom; but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and conftraint to exprefs many things otherwife (and for the moft part worse) than elfe they would have expreft them. Not without cufe therefore fome (both ITALIAN and SPANISH) Poets of prime note have rejected Rhyme, both in longer and fhorter works; as have alfo long fince our beft ENGLISH Tragedies; as a thing of itfelf, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true mufical delight: which confifts only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the fenfe variously drawn out from one verfe into another : not in the jingling found of like endings; a fault avoided by the learned Antients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rhyme fo little is to be taken for a defect; (though it may feem fo perhaps to vu'gar readers) that it rather is to be esteem'd an example fet (the first in ENGLISH) of antient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem, from the troublesome and modern bondage of Rhyming. THE |