On Sonnets and the Word “ Afpeé?”’....Quakers. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N the ingenious hints on verfification, 
‘p. 263, Mr. Dyer is certainly mif- 
taken when he fays that Milton intro, 
duced the fonnet-meafure into England. 
It was ingratted upon our ftock of na-_ 
tional pocly at leat acentury before, by 
Henry, Earl of Surry, who’ celebrated 
his Geraldine, a lady of Florentine ex- 
traction, in the Petrarchian ftanza. It was 
adopted with eagernels by the numerous 
imitators of our * firft claffical poet ;”’ 
and appears to have been as favourite a 
{pecies of compofition in the age of Eli-. 
zabeth as it is at the prefent day: fince 
many centuries of fonnets, amatory, en- 
coniiattic, fentimental, and {piritual, were 
publifhed near the clofe of her reign. 
-During that of James (though he had 
beerra fonnetteer) the fafhion feems to have 
declined; and Milton, therefore, rather 
revived than introduced, that Italian 
mode of metrical drefs ; which, however 
unbecoming on many occafions, almoft all 
our modern poets have condefcended to 
wear. : 
At p. 264. col. 2. Mr. Dyer has 
committed another flight miftake, in 
charging Milton with,a fault which is 
imputable to the zra at which he lived. 
The word afpéct was, before his time, 
uniformly accented upon the laft fyllable. 
In my refearches among the works of our 
earlier verfifiers, one folitary inftance only 
has occurred of a contrary ufage, which 
may be cohfidered as a mere exception to 
a generally-eftablifhed rule. Dr. Far- 
MER, in his well-known Effay, doubts 
whether a/pe@, in any fenfe of the word, 
_ was ever accented on the firft fyllable in 
the time of SHakefpeare: and he alludes 
to a paflage in Hudibras, where even. 
Butler 
tion— 
s¢ As if the planet’s firft afpe@ 
The tender infant did tnfeét.” 
Part I. 1. 941. 
followed the ancient accentua- 
. This very accent, he adds, hath trou- 
bled the annotators on Milton. Dr. 
BENTLEY obferves it to be ‘a tone dif- 
ferent fromthe prefent uie ;°? and Mr. 
MAINWARING remarks, in his “ Treatie 
of Harmony and Numbers,’ that the line 
cited by Mr. DrzrR is “‘defe&tive both 
imaccent.and quantity, a fyllable being © 
acuted and long, which ought to be praved 
and fhort.’’ ‘Phefe gentlemen have not 
been fufficiently aware that Milton af- 
Fetted the antique. . 
MonTHLy Mac, No. xxXx1, 
327 
-Mr. D. I truaft, will pardon the mi- 
nutenefs of thefe obiervations, and may 
probably. concur with the writer in think- 
ing it unfafe to follow the track of any 
critical predeceflor, without a careful ex» 
amination of the ground on which he 
trod. Ilam,&a , 
Maya. 8... 
ee 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SER, : 
Bee in your laf 
Magazine, has been anxious to 
exculpate the fociety of Friends, or 
Quakers, from -the charge of deifm 
brought againft them by Hume, Guthrie, 
and others. It. is indeed unjuftifiable in 
writers of their clais, to have mitrepre- 
fented, in various tays. a very ref{pectae 
ble body of people, concerning whom they 
had the power of obtaining the molt ace 
curate information. 
If, according to the fenfe of the term 
generally received, deifm confifts in ‘* acs 
knowledging the exifience of one God, ~ 
the ‘creator and preferver of the univerte ; 
and in following the light and law of na- 
ture,. to the exciufion of all revealed re- 
ligion, the Friends are certainly ‘not 
Deifts :—tfor they allow of divine revela~ 
tion to a much greater extent than any 
other denomination of Chriftians. 
Perhaps, Mr. Editor, we might clafs 
them better, were we permitted to’ efta- 
blith two kinds of Deifts: 1ft. Thofe of 
natural religion. 2dly. Deifis of revela- 
tion; the former being as above ftated ; 
the latter acknowledging one perfect and 
eternal God (not compofed of different 
perfons, as the majority of Chriftians 
would perfuade themfelves); and believ- 
ing that his will has been revealed to man- 
kind at fundry times, and through a 
number of individuals. * 
The Quakers are clearly not Trinita- 
rians: they never perfonify the holy Spi- 
rit, but confider it as an attribute of 
God, or an emanation from him, which 
enlightens. men beyond the extent of na- 
tural reafon, and gives them an inward 
fenfe or confcioufnefs of the divine will. 
I. N. however, afferts they do recognize 
“ the divinity of Chrift, the Son of God, 
the Meffiah, the Word, the Mediator of 
the new Covenant:’’ but how do they ac- 
knowledge it, Mr. Editor ?—becaufe Je- - 
fus Chrift “* is the wifdom and power of 
God unto falvation.’? This, Sir, is al- 
lowing Chrift’s divinity in words: but 
the elucidation ef the ahing completely 
Uy ices 

