ians in verse, than Epic poets: in whose room, if I am not
deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more justly be
admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of
four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and
of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse
in use amongst us; in which I am sure I have your approbation. The
learned languages have certainly a great advantage of us, in not being
tied to the slavery of any rhyme; and were less constrained in the
quantity of every syllable, which they might vary with spondees or
dactyls, besides so many other helps of grammatical figures, for the
lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern are in the close of
that one syllable, which often confines, and more often corrupts, the
sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our rhymes, I have
always found the couplet verse most easy, though not so proper for this
occasion: for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines
concluding the labour of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it
further on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the
troublesome sense of four lines together. For those who write correctly
in this kind must needs acknowledge, that the last line of the stanza is
to be considered in the composition of the first. Neither can we give
ourselves the liberty of making any part of a verse for the sake of
rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not current English, or using
the variety of female rhymes; all which our fathers practised: and for
the female rhymes, they are still in use among other nations; with the
Italian in every line, with the Spaniard promiscuously, with the French
alternately; as those who have read the Alarique, the Pucelle, or any of
their later poems, will agree with me. And besides this, they write in
Alexandrius, or verses of six feet; such as amongst us is the old
translation of Homer by Chapman: all which, by lengthening of their
chain, makes the sphere of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too
long upon the choice of my stanza, which you may remember is much better
defended in the preface to Gondibert; and therefore I will hasten to
acquaint you with my endeavours in the writing. In general, I will only
say, I have never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the
proper terms which are used at sea: and if there be any such, in another
language, as that of Lucan