he mangled tragedy:
Thus Itys first was killed, and after dressed
For his own sire, the chief invited guest."

This gave great offence to the players; one of whom (Powell) made a
petulant retort, which the reader will find in a note upon the Epistle
itself, vol. xi.

[31] Milbourne, in a note on that passage in the dedication to the
Aeneid--"_He who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank
verse_," says,--"We shall know that, when we see how much better
Dryden's Homer will be than his Virgil."

[32] "Much the same character he gave of it (_i.e._ Paradise Lost) to
a north-country gentleman, to whom I mentioned the book, he being a
great reader, but not in a right train, coming to town seldom, and
keeping little company. Dryden amazed him with speaking so loftily of
it. 'Why, Mr. Dryden, says he (Sir W.L. told me the thing himself), 'tis
not in rhyme.' 'No, [replied Dryden;] _nor would I have done_ Virgil
_in rhyme, if I was to begin it again._'"--This conversation is supposed
by Mr. Malone to have been held with Sir Wilfrid Lawson, of Isell in
Cumberland.

[33] See a letter to Mrs. Thomas, vol. xviii.

[34] "Some of these poets, to excuse their guilt, allege for themselves,
that the degeneracy of the age makes their lewd way of writing
necessary: they pretend the auditors will not be pleased, unless they
are thus entertained from the stage; and to please, they say, is the
chief business of the poet. But this is by no means a just apology: it
is not true, as was said before, that the poet's chief business is to
please. His chief business is to instruct, to make mankind wiser and
better; and in order to this, his care should be to please and entertain
the audience with all the wit and art he is master of. Aristotle and
Horace, and all their critics and commentators all men of wit and sense
agree, that this is the end of poetry. But they say, it is their
profession to write for the stage; and that poets must starve, if they
will not in this way humour the audience: the theatre will be as
unfrequented as the churches, and the poet and the parson equally
neglected. Let the poet then abandon his profession, and take up some
honest lawful calling, where, joining industry to his great wit, he may
soon get above the complaints of poverty, so common among these
ingenious men, and lie under no necessity of prostituting his wit to any
such vile purposes as are here censured. This will-be a course of life
more