a 74 on EngliJJ} poet)-y Paradise Lest. Aug.lt, 



made liberal interpolations of scenes of ribaldry,, and 

 low humour, to make the vulgar laugh. Shakespeare 

 himself, indeed, -with that infinite versatility of pow- 

 ers so peculiar to him, has drawn low characters, 

 and ludicrons scenes wkh the same unrivalled pro- 

 priety as the sublime and the pathetic. But it is 

 easy to perceive that many pafsages which are now 

 incorporated with his works, never had been writ- 

 ten by him ; though the tares have been so long 

 allowed to grow up promiscuously among the wheat, 

 that it would now Tie a difficult talk to separate 

 them. 



Yet though few writers have ever equalled 

 iSliakespeare in regard to the rhythmical flow of 

 poetic cadence, where the nature of the subject re- 

 quired it, yet wherever he attempted rhyme, he 

 sunk greatly below the meanest poetaster of the pre- 

 sent day. His rhymes are indeed so very bad, that 

 wet* it not for their uniformity in badnefs, I fliould 

 be inclined to rank them among the interpolations 

 that have been foisted so freely into the writings of 

 that extraordinary man. I dare not venture to form 

 even a decided opinion ori this head. 



Milton may be allowed to hold the second rank in 

 point of dignity among the Englifli poets. His Pa- 

 radise Lost, is a sublime monument of the power of 

 human genius. Its sublimity indeed is its princi- 

 pal characveiistic ; and Milton has discovered, in 

 the construction of his verse in this work, a perfect 

 knowledge of the power of poetical rhjlhmus, in con- 

 . tributing to the force of the picture he intended tp 

 prcdutc. In seme of his Itlser poems, Milton has, 



