Upon Varying the Pauses it is to be observed, that Two Verses together should rarely pause at the same Foot; for a Reason too plain to be mentioned. I said _rarely_; because there is no Law so strict in Things of This Nature, but that it is sometimes a Vertue to break it. And tho' it be one great Privilege in this sort of Verse, to make a full Period at the Beginning, or in the Middle of a Line; yet you may do it too often. _Milton_, I think, does so; who sometimes gives you thirty, or forty Verses together, not one of which concludes with a full Period. But to return to our Comparison.
Tho' all This be rather Matter of Sense, than of Reason; yet I appealed to the best Genius's, and Judges in Poetry; because it is a great Mistake to think that all Ears are equally Judges. It may as well, nay better, be affirmed that all Persons have equally Ears for Musick. This Sentiment is not _purely_ Organical, and depends not _solely_ upon the Mechanism of Sense. The Judgment has _a Share_ in it: Or if it has not; there is (which amounts to much the same) so close an Union between the Soul and Body of Man, as also between the Spirit and the Diction, which may be called the Soul and Body of Poetry; that the Poetical Turn of any Person's Mind affects the very Organs of Sense. Readers of vulgar and mean Tastes may relish Rhime best; and so may Some even of the best Taste; because they have been habituated to it. But the more they accustom themselves to Blank Verse; the better they will like it:
_----Si propius stes, Te capiet magis----_
After all, I cannot agree with Those, who _entirely condemn_ the Use of Rhime even in an Heroic Poem; nor can I absolutely reject That in Speculation, which Mr. _Dryden_, and Mr. _Pope_ have ennobled by their Practice. I acknowledge too that, in some particular Views, tho' not upon the Whole, This Way of Writing has the Advantage over the other. You may pick out more Lines, which, singly considered, look mean, and low, from a Poem in Blank Verse, than from one in Rhime: supposing them to be in other respects equal. Take the Lines singly by themselves, or in Couplets; and more in Blank Verse shall be less strong, and smooth, than in Rhime: But then take a considerable Number together; and Blank Verse shall have the Advantage in both Regards. Little, and ignoble Words, as _Thus_, _Now_, _Then_, _Him_, &c. on the one Hand; and long ones, as _Elements_, _Omnipotent_, _Majesty_, &c. on the other, would in a Poem consisting of Rhime sound weak, and languishing, at the End of a Verse: because the Rhime draws out the Sound of those Words, and makes them observed, and taken notice of by the Ear: Whereas in Blank Verse they are covered, and concealed by running immediately into the next Line. And yet a considerable Number of Lines are not, in the Main, Prosaick, or Flat; but more Noble, than if they were all in Rhime. For Instance, the following Verses out of _Milton_'s _Paradise Lost_, Book II.