ge of ten lines flowing with uninterrupted smoothness could be
singled out from all the thousands that he has left us. He frequently
pauses at the first word of the line, when it consists of three or
more syllables; not seldom when of two; and sometimes even when of one
only. In this practice he was followed, as was observed in my Preface
to the first edition, by the Author of the Paradise Lost. An example
inimitable indeed, but which no writer of English heroic verse without
rhyme can neglect with impunity.

Similar to this is the objection which proscribes absolutely the
occasional use of a line irregularly constructed. When Horace censured
Lucilius for his lines _incomposite pede currentes_, he did not mean
to say, that he was chargeable with such in some instances, or even in
many, for then the censure would have been equally applicable to
himself; but he designed by that expression to characterize all his
writings. The censure therefore was just; Lucilius wrote at a time
when the Roman verse had not yet received its polish, and instead of
introducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular
purpose, had probably seldom, and never but by accident, composed a
smooth one. Such has been the versification of the earliest poets in
every country. Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time,
their speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well taught, harmonious.

HOMER himself is not invariably regular in the construction of his
verse. Had he been so, Eustathius, an excellent critic and warm
admirer of HOMER, had never affirmed, that some of his lines want a
head, some a tail, and others a middle. Some begin with a word that is
neither dactyl nor spondee, some conclude with a dactyl, and in the
intermediate part he sometimes deviates equally from the established
custom. I confess that instances of this sort are rare; but they are
surely, though few, sufficient to warrant a sparing use of similar
license in the present day.

Unwilling, however, to seem obstinate in both these particulars, I
conformed myself in some measure to these objections, though
unconvinced myself of their propriety. Several of the rudest and most
unshapely lines I composed anew; and several of the pauses least in
use I displaced for the sake of an easier enunciation.--And this was
the state of the work after the revisal given it about seven years
since.

Between that revisal and the present a considerable time intervened,
and th