gument is almost as strong
against the use of Rhyme in Poems, as in Plays. For the Epic way is
everywhere interlaced with Dialogue or Discoursive Scenes: and,
therefore, you must either grant Rhyme to be improper there, which is
contrary to your assertion; or admit it into Plays, by the same title
which you have given it to Poems.

"For though Tragedy be justly preferred above the other, yet there is a
great affinity between them; as may easily be discovered in that
Definition of a Play, which LISIDEIUS gave us [p. 513]. The genus of them
is the same, A JUST AND LIVELY IMAGE OF HUMAN NATURE, IN ITS ACTIONS,
PASSIONS, AND TRAVERSES OF FORTUNE: so is the End, namely, FOR THE
DELIGHT AND BENEFIT OF MANKIND. The Characters and Persons are still the
same, viz., the greatest of both sorts: only the _manner of acquainting
us_ with those actions, passions, and fortunes is different. Tragedy
performs it, _viva voce_, or by Action in Dialogue: wherein it excels the
Epic Poem; which does it, chiefly, by Narration, and therefore is not so
lively an Image of Human Nature. However, the agreement betwixt them is
such, that if Rhyme be proper for one, it must be for the other.

"Verse, 'tis true, is not 'the effect of Sudden Thought.' But this
hinders not, that Sudden Thought may be represented in Verse: since those
thoughts are such, as must be higher than Nature can raise them without
premeditation, especially, to a continuance of them, even out of Verse:
and, consequently, you cannot imagine them, to have been sudden, either
in the Poet or the Actors.

"A Play, as I have said, to be like Nature, is to be set above it; as
statues which are placed on high, are made greater than the life, that
they may descend to the sight, in their just proportion.

"Perhaps, I have insisted too long upon this objection; but the clearing
of it, will make my stay shorter on the rest.

"You tell us, CRITES! that 'Rhyme is most unnatural in Repartees or Short
Replies: when he who answers, it being presumed he knew not what the other
would say, yet makes up that part of the Verse which was left incomplete;
and supplies both the sound and the measure of it. This,' you say, 'looks
rather like the Confederacy of two, than the Answer of one.'

"This, I confess, is an objection which is in every one's mouth, who
loves not Rhyme; but suppose, I beseech you! the Repartee were made only
in Blank Verse; might not part of the same argument be turned against
y