ication on the regular sing-song of Pope,
condemns the Paradise Lost as harsh and unequal. I shall not pretend to
say that this is not sometimes the case; for where a degree of
excellence beyond the mechanical rules of art is attempted, the poet
must sometimes fail. But I imagine that there are more perfect examples
in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and
movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all our
other writers, whether of rhyme or blank verse, put together, (with the
exception already mentioned). Spenser is the most harmonious of our
stanza writers, as Dryden is the most sounding and varied of our
rhymists. But in neither is there any thing like the same ear for music,
the same power of approximating the varieties of poetical to those of
musical rhythm, as there is in our great epic poet. The sound of his
lines is moulded into the expression of the sentiment, almost of the
very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry rapidly on, with exquisite
art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems
to require.

The following are some of the finest instances:

"------His hand was known
In Heaven by many a tower'd structure high;--
Nor was his name unheard or unador'd
In ancient Greece: and in the Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber: and how he fell
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the chrystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, the AEgean isle: thus they relate,
Erring."--

"------But chief the spacious hall
Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,
Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flow'rs
Fly to and fro: or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the airy crowd
Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till the signal giv'n,
Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd
In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless