"Ubi plum nitent in carmine non ego paucis offendar maculis.
"If, in consideration of their many and great beauties, we can wink at some slight and little imperfections; if we, I say, can be thus equal to ourselves: I ask no favour from the French.
"And if I do not venture upon any particular judgement of our late Plays: 'tis out of the consideration which an ancient writer gives me. Vivorum, ut magna admiratio ita censura difficilis; 'betwixt the extremes of admiration and malice, 'tis hard to judge uprightly of the living.' Only, I think it may be permitted me to say, that as it is no lessening to us, to yield to some Plays (and those not many) of our nation, in the last Age: so can it be no addition, to pronounce of our present Poets, that they have far surpassed all the Ancients, and the Modern Writers of other countries."
This, my Lord! [_i.e., the Dedicatee, the Lord BUCKHURST, p. 503] was the substance of what was then spoke, on that occasion: and LISIDEIUS, I think, was going to reply; when he was prevented thus by CRITES.
"I am confident," said he, "the most material things that can be said, have been already urged, on either side. If they have not; I must beg of LISIDEIUS, that he will defer his answer till another time. For I confess I have a joint quarrel to you both: because you have concluded [pp. 539, 548], without any reason given for it, that Rhyme is proper for the Stage.
"I will not dispute how ancient it hath been among us to write this way.
Perhaps our ancestors knew no better, till SHAKESPEARE's time, I will
grant, it was not altogether left by him; and that PLETCHER and BEN
JOHNSON used it frequently in their Pastorals, and sometimes in other
Plays.
"Farther; I will not argue, whether we received it originally from our own countrymen, or from the French. For that is an inquiry of as little benefit as theirs, who, in the midst of the Great Plague [1665], were not so solicitous to provide against it; as to know whether we had it from the malignity of our own air, or by transportation from Holland.
"I have therefore only to affirm that it is not allowable in serious
Plays. For Comedies, I find you are already concluding with me.
"To prove this, I might satisfy myself to tell you, how much in vain it is, for you, to strive against the stream of the People's inclination! the greatest part of whom, are prepossessed so much with those excellent plays of SHAKESPEARE, FLETCHER, and BEN. JOHNSON, which have been written out of Rhyme, that (except you could bring them such as were written better in it; and those, too, by persons of equal reputation with them) it will be impossible for you to gain your cause with them: who will (still) be judges. This it is to which, in fine, all your reasons must submit. The unanimous consent of an audience is so powerful, that even JULIUS CAESAR (as MACROBIOS reports of him), when he, was Perpetual Dictator, was not able to balance it, on the other side: but when LABERIUS, a Roman knight, at his request, contended in the Mime with another poet; he was forced to cry out, Etiam favente me victus es Liberi.
"But I will not, on this occasion, take the advantage of the greater number; but only urge such reasons against Rhyme, as I find in the writings of those who have argued for the other way.