ff that subject: It is
true the author was not there to go out of prose, as he does in his
higher arguments of comedy, "The Fox" and "Alchemist;" yet he does so
raise his matter in that prose, as to render it delightful; which
he could never have performed, had he only said or done those very
things, that are daily spoken or practised in the fair: for then the
fair itself would be as full of pleasure to an ingenious person as the
play, which we manifestly see it is not. But he hath made an excellent
lazar of it; the copy is of price, though the original be vile. You
see in "Catiline" and "Sejanus," where the argument is great, he
sometimes ascends to verse, which shews he thought it not unnatural in
serious plays; and had his genius been as proper for rhyme as it
was for humour, or had the age in which he lived attained to as much
knowledge in verse as ours, it is probable he would have adorned those
subjects with that kind of writing.

Thus Prose, though the rightful prince, yet is by common consent
deposed, as too weak for the government of serious plays: and he
failing, there now start up two competitors; one, the nearer in blood,
which is Blank Verse; the other, more fit for the ends of government,
which is Rhyme. Blank Verse is, indeed, the nearer Prose, but he is
blemished with the weakness of his predecessor. Rhyme (for I will
deal clearly) has somewhat of the usurper in him; but he is brave, and
generous, and his dominion pleasing. For this reason of delight,
the ancients (whom I will still believe as wise as those who so
confidently correct them) wrote all their tragedies in verse, though
they knew it most remote from conversation.

But I perceive I am falling into the danger of another rebuke from my
opponent; for when I plead that the ancients used verse, I prove not
that they would have admitted rhyme, had it then been written. All
I can say is only this, that it seems to have succeeded verse by the
general consent of poets in all modern languages; for almost all their
serious plays are written in it; which, though it be no demonstration
that therefore they ought to be so, yet at least the practice first,
and then the continuation of it, shews that it attained the end, which
was to please; and if that cannot be compassed here, I will be the
first who shall lay it down: for I confess my chief endeavours are
to delight the age in which I live. If the humour of this be for low
comedy, small accidents, and rai