Comparing the Latin Hexameter and English heroic rhyme, the former has obviously the advantage in the following particulars. It is greatly preferable as to arrangement, by the latitude it admits in placing the long and short syllables. Secondly, the length of an Hexameter line hath a majestic air: ours, by its shortness, is indeed more brisk and lively, but much less fitted for the sublime. And, thirdly, the long high-sounding words that Hexameter admits, add greatly to its majesty. To compensate these advantages, English rhyme possesses a greater number and greater variety both of pauses and of accents. These two sorts of verse stand indeed pretty much in opposition: in the Hexameter, great variety of arrangement, none in the pauses or accents: in the English rhyme, great variety in the pauses and accents, very little in the arrangement. In blank verse are united, in a good measure, the several properties of Latin Hexameter and English rhyme; and it possesses beside many signal properties of its own. If is not confined, like a Hexameter, by a full close at the end of every line; nor, like rhyme, by a full close at the end of every couplet. This form of construction, which admits the lines to run into each other, gives it a still greater majesty than arises from the length of a Hexameter line. By the same means, it admits inversion even beyond the Latin or Greek Hexameter, which suffer some confinement by the regular closes at the end of every line. In its music it is illustrious above all. The melody of Hexameter verse, is circumscribed to a line; and of English rhyme, to a couplet. The melody of blank verse is under no confinement, but enjoys the utmost privilege of which the melody of verse is susceptible, and that is to run hand in hand with the sense. In a word, blank verse is superior to the Hexameter in many articles; and inferior to it in none, save in the latitude of arrangement, and in the use of long words. * * * * * In the French heroic verse, there are found, on the contrary, all the defects of the Latin Hexameter and English rhyme, without the beauties of either. Subjected to the bondage of rhyme, and to the full close at the end of each couplet, it is further peculiarly disgustful by the uniformity of its pauses and accents. The line invariably is divided by the pause into two equal parts, and the accent is invariably placed before the pause. Jeune et vaillant herôs || dont la haute sagesse Ne’st point la fruit tardîf || d’une lente vieillesse. Here every circumstance contributes to a most tedious uniformity. A constant return of the same pause and of the same accent, as well as an equal division of every line; by which the latter part always answers to the former, and fatigues the ear without intermission or change. I cannot set this matter in a better light, than by presenting to the reader a French translation of the following passage of Milton.