This novelty has been, by thofe who can find nothing wrong in Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words fuitable to the grandeur of his ideas. Our language, fays Addifon, funk under him. But the truth is, that, both in profe and verfe, he had formed his ftyle by a perverfe and pedantic principle. He was defirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This in all his profe is discovered and condemned; for the re judgement operates freely, neither foftened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but fuch is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed without refiftance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism finks in admiration,

Milton's ftyle was not modified by his fubject; what is fhown with greater extent in Paradife Loft, may be found in Comus. One fource of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the difpofition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps fometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at laft, may be faid what Jonfon fays

of

of Spenfer, that he wrote no language, but has formed what Butler calls a Babylonish Dialect, in itself harsh and barbarous, but made, by exalted genius and extenfive learn ing, the vehicle of fo much inftruction and so much pleasure, that like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.

Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praife of copioufnefs and variety: he was mafter of his language in its full extent; and has felected the melodious words with fuch diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned,

After his diction, fomething must be said of his verfification. The measure, he says, is the English heroick verfe without rhyme. Of this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and fome in his own country. The Earl of Surrey is faid to have tranflated one of Virgil's books without rhyme; and, besides our tragedies, a few fhort poems had appeared in blank verfe, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written

by Raleigh himself.

Thefe petty perfor

mances cannot be fuppofed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Triffino's Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verfe easier than rhyme, was defirous of perfuading himself that it is better.

Rhyme, he fays, and fays truly, is no neceflary adjunct of true poetry. But, perhaps, of poetry as a mental operation, metre or mufick is no neceffary adjunct: it is however by the mufick of metre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages melodiously conftructed with a due proportion of long and fhort fyllables, metre is fufficient. But one language cannot communicate its rules to another: where metre is fcanty and imperfect, fome help is neceffary. The mufick of the English heroick line ftrikes the ear fo faintly, that it is easily loft, unless all the fyllables of every line cooperate together; this co-operation can be only obtained by the prefervation of every - verfe unmingled with another as a diftinct fyftem of founds; and this diftinctnefs is obtained and preferved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of paufes, fo much boafted by

the

the lovers of blank verfe, changes the meafures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. Blank verfe, faid an ingenious critick, feems to be verfe only to the eye.

Poetry may fubfift without rhyme, but English poetry will not often please; nor can rhyme ever be fafely fpared but where the subject is able to fupport itself. Blank verfe makes fome approach to that which is called the lapidary ftyle; has neither the eafinefs of profe, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the Ita-. lian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alledges as precedents, not one is popular; what reafon could urge in its defence has been confuted by the ear,

But, whatever be the advantage of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to wifh that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot with his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated.

imitated. He that thinks himself capable of aftonishing may write blank verfe; but those that hope only to pleafe muft condescend to rhyme.

The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be faid to have contrived the structure of an epick poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interpofition of dialogue, and all the ftratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the leaft indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and difdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refufe admiffion to the thoughts or ima ges of his predeceffors, but he did not feek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received fupport; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praife, nor folicitation of fup

port.