However, we must take Paradise Lost as it is, and rejoice that we have in it, one of the finest Works that ever the Wit of Man produc'd: But then the Imperfection of this Work must not be pleaded in favour of such other Works as have hardly any thing worthy of Observation in them. Placing Milton with his blank Verse by himself (as indeed he ought to be in many other respects, for he certainly has no Companion) this Dispute about the Excellency of blank Verse, and even the Preference of it to rhym'd Verse, may be determined by comparing two Writers of Note, who have undertaken the same Subject; that is, Virgil's Æneid.
Now I will take all the Passages of that Poem mentioned in my Letters to you, and compare them in these two Translations: And if it shall appear by the Comparison that the rhym'd Verses have not only more Harmony and Conciseness, but likewise that they express Virgil's Sense more fully and more perspicuously than the blank Verse, will it not be easy to determine which of these two Sorts ought to be preferr'd?
Octob. 22. 1736.
I am, Sir, &c.
P.S.
When I was taking notice of Virgil's Arts of Versification, I should not have omitted his sudden varying the Tense of the Verb from the Preterperfect to the Present.
"Non tua te nobis, Genitrix pulcherrima talem
Promisit, Graiisque ideo bis vindicat armis.