"Thus OVID's Fancy was not limited by Verse; and VIRGIL needed not Verse to have bounded his.
"In our own language, we see BEN. JOHNSON confining himself to what ought to be said, even in the liberty of Blank Verse; and yet CORNEILLE, the most judicious of the French poets, is still varying the same Sense a hundred ways, and dwelling eternally upon the same subject, though confined by Rhyme.
"Some other exceptions, I have to Verse; but these I have named, being, for the most part, already public: I conceive it reasonable they should, first, be answered."
"It concerns me less than any," said NEANDER, seeing he had ended, "to reply to this discourse, because when I should have proved that Verse may be natural in Plays; yet I should always be ready to confess that those which I [i.e., DRYDEN, see pp. 503, 566] have written in this kind, come short of that perfection which is required. Yet since you are pleased I should undertake this province, I will do it: though, with all imaginable respect and deference both to that Person [i.e., SIR ROBERT HOWARD, see p. 494] from whom you have borrowed your strongest arguments; and to whose judgement, when I have said all, I finally submit.
"But before I proceed to answer your objections; I must first remember you, that I exclude all Comedy from my defence; and next, that I deny not but Blank Verse may be also used: and content myself only to assert that in serious Plays, where the Subject and Characters are great, and the Plot unmixed with mirth (which might allay or divert these concernments which are produced), Rhyme is there, as natural, and more effectual than Blank Verse.
"And now having laid down this as a foundation: to begin with CRITES, I must crave leave to tell him, that some of his arguments against Rhyme, reach no farther that from the faults or defects of ill Rhyme to conclude against the use of it in general [p. 598]. May not I conclude against Blank Verse, by the same reason? If the words of some Poets, who write in it, are either ill-chosen or ill-placed; which makes not only Rhyme, but all kinds of Verse, in any language, unnatural: shall I, for their virtuous affectation, condemn those excellent lines of FLETCHER, which are written in that kind? Is there anything in Rhyme more constrained, than this line in Blank Verse?
"I, heaven invoke! and strong resistance make.
"Where you see both the clauses are placed unnaturally; that is, contrary to the common way of speaking, and that, without the excuse of a rhyme to cause it: yet you would think me very ridiculous, if I should accuse the stubbornness of Blank Verse for this; and not rather, the stiffness of the Poet. Therefore, CRITES! you must either prove that words, though well chosen and duly placed, yet render not Rhyme natural in itself; or that, however natural and easy the Rhyme may be, yet it is not proper for a Play.
"If you insist on the former part; I would ask you what other conditions are required to make Rhyme natural in itself, besides an election of apt words, and a right disposing of them? For the due choice of your words expresses your Sense naturally, and the due placing them adapts the Rhyme to it.
"If you object that one verse may be made for the sake of another, though both the words and rhyme be apt, I answer it cannot possibly so fall out. For either there is a dependence of sense betwixt the first line and the second; or there is none. If there be that connection, then, in the natural position of the words, the latter line must, of necessity, flow from the former: if there be no dependence, yet, still, the due ordering of words makes the last line as natural in itself as the other. So that the necessity of a rhyme never forces any but bad or lazy writers, to say what they would not otherwise.