accentual difference, the practice of our elder dramatists in the resolution of the final _tion_ (which now is uniformly pronounced _shon_), will be found exceedingly important to the appreciation of a writer's verse. Contribution, which now is necessarily pronounced as a word of four syllables, would then, in verse, have five, being read into con-tri-bu-ce-on. Many readers will recollect another word, which for years brought John Kemble into hot water with the pit of Drury Lane. It was the plural of the word ache. This is generally made a dissyllable by the Elizabethan dramatists; it occurs in the 'Tempest.' Prospero says-- 'I'll fill thy bones with aches.' What follows, which I do not remember _literatim_, is such metrically as to _require_ two syllables for aches. But how, then, was this to be pronounced? Kemble thought _akies_ would sound ludicrous; _aitches_ therefore he called it: and always the pit howled like a famished _menagerie_, as they did also when he chose (and he constantly chose) to pronounce _beard_ like _bird_. Many of these niceties must be known, before a critic can ever allow _himself_ to believe that he is right in _obelizing_, or in marking with so much as a ? any verse whatever of Milton's. And there are some of these niceties, I am satisfied, not even yet fully investigated. It is, however, to be borne in mind, after all allowances and provisional reservations have been made that Bentley's hypothesis (injudiciously as it was managed by that great scholar) has really a truth of fact to stand upon. Not only must Milton have composed his three greatest poems, the two 'Paradises, and the 'Samson,' in a state of blindness--but subsequently, in the correction of the proofs, he must have suffered still more from this conflict with darkness and, consequently, from this dependence upon careless readers. This is Bentley's case: as lawyers say: 'My lord, that is my case.' It is possible enough to write correctly in the dark, as I myself often do, when losing or missing my lucifers--which, like some elder lucifers, are always rebelliously straying into place where they _can_ have no business. But it is quite impossible to _correct a proof_ in the dark. At least, if there _is_ such an art, it must be a section of the black art. Bentley gained from Pope that admirable epithet of _slashing, ['the ribbalds--from slashing Bentley down to piddling Theobalds_,' i.e. _Tibbulds_ as it was pronounced], altogether from his edition of the 'Paradise Lost.' This the doctor founded on his own hypothesis as to the advantage taken of Milton's blindness; and corresponding was the havoc which he made of the text. In fact, on the really just allegation that Milton must have used the services of an amanuensis; and the plausible one that this amanuensis, being often weary of his task, would be likely to neglect punctilious accuracy; and the most improbable allegation that this weary person would also be very conceited, and add much rubbish of his