great length there is no
blemish more to be feared than sameness of numbers, and every art is
useful by which it may be avoided. A line, rough in itself, has yet
its recommendations; it saves the ear the pain of an irksome monotony,
and seems even to add greater smoothness to others. Milton, whose ear
and taste were exquisite, has exemplified in his Paradise Lost the
effect of this practice frequently.

Having mentioned Milton, I cannot but add an observation on the
similitude of his manner to that of HOMER. It is such, that no person
familiar with both, can read either without being reminded of the
other; and it is in those breaks and pauses, to which the numbers of
the English poet are so much indebted both for their dignity and
variety, that he chiefly copies the Grecian. But these are graces to
which rhyme is not competent; so broken, it loses all its music; of
which any person may convince himself by reading a page only of any of
our poets anterior to Denham, Waller, and Dryden. A translator of
HOMER, therefore, seems directed by HOMER himself to the use of blank
verse, as to that alone in which he can be rendered with any tolerable
representation of his manner in this particular. A remark which I am
naturally led to make by a desire to conciliate, if possible, some,
who, rather unreasonably partial to rhyme, demand it on all occasions,
and seem persuaded that poetry in our language is a vain attempt
without it. Verse, that claims to be verse in right of its metre only,
they judge to be such rather by courtesy than by kind, on an
apprehension that it costs the writer little trouble, that he has only
to give his lines their prescribed number of syllables, and so far as
the mechanical part is concerned, all is well. Were this true, they
would have reason on their side; for the author is certainly best
entitled to applause who succeeds against the greatest difficulty, and
in verse that calls for the most artificial management in its
construction. But the case is not as they suppose. To rhyme, in our
language, demands no great exertion of ingenuity, but is always easy
to a person exercised in the practice. Witness the multitudes who
rhyme, but have no other poetical pretensions. Let it be considered
too, how merciful we are apt to be to unclassical and indifferent
language for the sake of rhyme, and we shall soon see that the labor
lies principally on the other side. Many ornaments of no easy purchase
are required to