every greatly amiable mufe Of elder ages in thy Milton met; His was the treasure of two thousand years, JOHN MILTON. ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR'S LAST EDITION, IN THE YEAR 1674. DUBLIN: Printed for W. and W. SMITH, P. WILSON, and T. EWING. M DOG LXVM. ཤ THE VERSE. TH HE measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and 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 meter; grac'd indeed fince by the use of fome famous modern poets, carried away by cuftom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to exprefs many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore fome both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and fhorter works, as have also long fince our beft English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true mufical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into a |