unfounded. The pauses in Homer's verse are so frequent and various,
that to name another poet, if pauses are a fault, more faulty than he,
were, perhaps, impossible. It may even be questioned, if a single
passage of ten lines flowing with uninterrupted smoothness could be
singled out from all the thousands that he has left us. He frequently
pauses at the first word of the line, when it consists of three or
more syllables; not seldom when of two; and sometimes even when of one
only. In this practice he was followed, as was observed in my Preface
to the first edition, by the Author of the Paradise Lost. An example
inimitable indeed, but which no writer of English heroic verse without
rhyme can neglect with impunity.

Similar to this is the objection which proscribes absolutely the
occasional use of a line irregularly constructed. When Horace censured
Lucilius for his lines _incomposite pede currentes_, he did not mean
to say, that he was chargeable with such in some instances, or even in
many, for then the censure would have been equally applicable to
himself; but he designed by that expression to characterize all his
writings. The censure therefore was just; Lucilius wrote at a time
when the Roman verse had not yet received its polish, and instead of
introducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular
purpose, had probably seldom, and never but by accident, composed a
smooth one. Such has been the versification of the earliest poets in
every country. Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time,
their speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well taught, harmonious.

HOMER himself is not invariably regular in the construction of his
verse. Had he been so, Eustathius, an excellent critic and warm
admirer of HOMER, had never affirmed, that some of his lines want a
head, some a tail, and others a middle. Some begin with a word that is