rsons.

[Footnote A: A sneer which Sir Robert aims at Dryden. Dryden had
written twice on the question of rhyming tragedies.]

But to return to verse, whether it be natural or not in plays, is a
problem which is not demonstrable of either side: It is enough for me,
that he acknowledges he had rather read good verse than prose: for
if all the enemies of verse will confess as much, I shall not need
to prove that it is natural. I am satisfied if it cause delight; for
delight is the chief, if not the only, end of poesy: Instruction can
be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it
delights. It is true, that to imitate well is a poet's work; but to
affect the soul, and excite the passions, and, above all, to move
admiration (which is the delight of serious plays), a bare imitation
will not serve. The converse, therefore, which a poet is to imitate,
must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesy; and must
be such as, strictly considered, could never be supposed spoken by any
without premeditation.

As for what he urges, that "a play will still be supposed to be a
composition of several persons speaking _extempore_, and that good
verses are the hardest things which can be imagined to be so spoken;"
I must crave leave to dissent from his opinion, as to the former part
of it: For, if I am not deceived, a play is supposed to be the work
of the poet, imitating, or representing, the conversation of several
persons: and this I think to be as clear, as he thinks the contrary.

But I will be bolder, and do not doubt to make it good, though a
paradox, that one great reason why prose is not to be used in serious
plays, is, because it is too near the nature of converse: There may be
too great a likeness; as the most skilful painters affirm, that there
may be too near a resemblance in a picture: To take every lineament
and feature is not to make an excellent piece, but to take so much
only as will make a beautiful resemblance of the whole: and, with an
ingenious flattery of nature, to heighten the beauties of some parts,
and hide the deformities of the rest. For so says Horace,

_Ut pictura poesis erit. &c.--
Haec amat obscurum, vult haec sub luce videri,
Judicis argutum quae formidat acumen.
Et quae
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit._

In "Bartholomew Fair," or the lowest kind of comedy, that degree of
heightening is used, which is proper to set o