[31] On Massinger's verse see also Fleay's Shakespeare Manual, p. 154.
[32] On Milton's verse, see, besides the entire third essay in Mr. Symonds's book, Masson's edition of Milton, vol. iii. pp. 107-133; Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody; Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., pp. 71-77 and 96-105; chapter xii. of Corson's Primer of English Verse; and a passage in De Quincey's essay on "Milton v. Southey and Landor," in his works, ed. Masson, vol. xi. pp. 463 ff. Says De Quincey: "You might as well tax Mozart with harshness in the divinest passages of Don Giovanni as Milton with any such offence against metrical science. Be assured it is yourself that do not read with understanding, not Milton that by possibility can be found deaf to the demands of perfect harmony."
[33] Aaron Hill (1685-1750), an admirer of Thomson, wrote a "Poem in Praise of Blank Verse," opening:
"Up from Rhyme's poppied vale! and ride the storm
That thunders in blank verse!"
On the other hand, there were not wanting protestants against the form, like Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith (see above, p. [205]). Robert Lloyd (1733-1764) wrote:
"Some Milton-mad (an affectation
Glean'd up from college-education)
Approve no verse, but that which flows
In epithetic measur'd prose;...
the metre which they call
Blank, classic blank, their all in all."
(Quoted in Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 385.)
[34] On its analysis, see Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. xiii.