, without taking Notice of that celebrated Complaint of
Milton
with which it opens, and which certainly deserves all the Praises that have been given it; tho' as I have before hinted, it may rather be looked upon as an Excrescence, than as an essential Part of the Poem. The same Observation might be applied to that beautiful Digression upon Hypocrisie, in the same Book.
L.
De Arte Poetica
,. II. 38-40.