"With the remaining Tragedies I shall also send you some reflections on that Paradise Lost of Milton's, which some are pleased to call a Poem, and assert Rhime against the slender Sophistry wherewith he attaques it."
But two years after the appearance of Dryden's
Juvenal
and
Persius
Rymer prefixed to his translation of Réné Rapin's
Reflections on Aristotle's Poesie
some Reflections of his own on Epic Poets. Herein he speaks under the head Epic Poetry of Chaucer, 'in whose time language was not capable of heroic character;' or Spenser, who "wanted a true Idea, and lost himself by following an unfaithful guide, besides using a stanza which is in no wise proper for our language;" of Sir William Davenant, who, in
Gondibert
, "has some strokes of an extraordinary judgment," but "is for unbeaten tracks and new ways of thinking;" "his heroes are foreigners;" of Cowley, in whose