Yet as I read, 'till growing lefs fevere,
I lik'd his project, the fuccefs did fear;

Through that wide field how he his way should find,
O'er which lame faith leads understanding blind;
Left he perplex'd the things he would explain,
And what was eafy he should render vain.
Or if a work fo infinite he spann'd,
Jealous I was that fome lefs fkilful hand
(Such as difquiet always what is well,
And by ill imitating would excel)'

Might hence prefume the whole creation's day
To change in scenes, and fhow it in a play.
Pardon me, mighty Poet; nor despise
My caufelefs, yet not impious, furmise.
'But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare
Within thy labours to pretend a share.

Thou haft not miss'd one thought that could be fit,
And all that was improper doft omit :

So that no room is here for writers left,
But to detect their ignorance or theft.

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 seize,
Thou fing'ft with so much gravity and ease;
And above human flight dost soar aloft
With plume fo ftrong, fo equal, and fo soft.
The bird nam'd from that Paradife you fing
So never flags, but always keeps on wing.

MILTON.

Bartolozzi Sculp

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ΤΗ

THE VE RS E..

HE measure is English heroic verfe without' rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin ; rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works efpecially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to fet off wretched matter and lame meter; graced indeed fince by the ufe of fome famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwife, and for the moft part worse than elfe they would have expreffed them.. Not without cause 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 itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which confifts only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verfe into another, not in the jingling found of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned Ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then VOL. I.

B

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