"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