Note 156 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's Paradise Lost; and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only to the eye."' Johnson's Works, vii. 141. In the Life of Roscommon (ib. p. 171), he says:—'A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.'