IN Paradisum Amissam Summi Poetæ JOHANNIS MILTONI. Qui legis Amissam Paradisum, grandia magni Terræque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum Et sine fine magis, si quid magis est sine fine, At simul in cælis Messiæ insignia fulgent, Excidit attonitis mens omnis, & impetus omnis Et quos fama recens vel celebravit anus. S. B., M. D. ON Paradise Lost. WHEN I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, (So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight) I lik'd his Project, the success did fear; Through that wide Field how he his way should find Or if a Work so infinite he spann'd, Jealous I was that some less skilful hand Might hence presume the whole Creations day But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare Thou hast not miss'd one thought that could be fit, So that no room is here for Writers left, That Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign Well mightst thou scorn thy Readers to allure While the Town-Bayes writes all the while and spells, I too transported by the Mode offend, And while I meant to Praise thee must Commend. Thy Verse created like thy Theme sublime, In Number, Weight, and Measure, needs not Rhime. A. M. In Paradisum Amissam. On Paradise Lost] Added in the second edition 1674. The Printer to the Reader. Courteous Reader, there was no Argument at first intended to the Book, but for the satisfaction of many that have desired it, I have procur'd it, and withall a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the Poem Rimes not. S. Simmons. The Printer to the Reader] Added in 1668 to the copies then remaining of the first edition, amended in 1669, and omitted in 1670. I have procur'd it, and... not 1669] is procured 1668. THE VERSE. THE measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rime both 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 jingling 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. The Verse] Added in 1668 to the copies then remaining of the first edition; together with the Argument. In the second edition (1674) the Argument, with the necessary adjustment to the division made in Books vii and x, was distributed through the several books of the poem, as it is here printed. |