Here,” says he, “a syllable is acuted and long, whereas it should be short and graved”!
And a still more extraordinary Gentleman, one Green, who published a Specimen of a new Version of the Paradise Lost, into Blank verse, “by which that amazing Work is brought somewhat nearer the Summit of Perfection,” begins with correcting a blunder in the fourth book, V. 540:
——The setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right Aspéct—
Levell'd his evening rays.——
Not so in the New Version:
Meanwhile the setting Sun descending slow—
Level'd with áspect right his ev'ning rays.
Enough of such Commentators.—The celebrated Dr. Dee had a Spirit, who would sometimes condescend to correct him, when peccant in Quantity: and it had been kind of him to have a little assisted the Wights above-mentioned.—Milton affected the Antique; but it may seem more extraordinary that the old Accent should be adopted in Hudibras.
After all, the Double Falshood is superior to Theobald. One passage, and one only in the whole Play, he pretended to have written: