Page:Paradise lost - a poem in ten books (IA paradiselostpoem00milt 0).pdf/21

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The Verſe.

in longer and ſhorter Works, as have alſo long ſince our beſt Engliſh Tragedies, as a thing of it ſelf, to all judicious eares, triveal and of no true muſical delight; which conſiſts only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the ſenſe variouſly drawn out from one Verſe into another, not in the fingling ſound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rime ſo little is to be taken for a defect, though it may ſeem ſo perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be eſteem'd an example ſet, the firſt in Engliſh, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troubleſom and modern bondage of Rimeing.

ERRA-