FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147  
148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   >>   >|  
re always the effect of some hasty concernment; and something of consequence depends upon them. "Thus, CRITES! I have endeavoured to answer your objections. It remains only that I should vindicate an argument for Verse, which you have gone about to overthrow. "It had formerly been said [p. 492] that, 'The easiness of Blank Verse renders the Poet too luxuriant; but that the labour of Rhyme bounds and circumscribes an over fruitful fancy: the Sense there being commonly confined to the Couplet; and the words so ordered that the Rhyme naturally follows them, not they, the Rhyme.' "To this, you answered, that 'It was no argument to the question in hand: for the dispute was not which way _a man may write best_; but which is _most proper for the subject on which he writes_.' "First. Give me leave, Sir, to remember you! that the argument on which you raised this objection was only secondary. It was built upon the hypothesis, that to write in Verse was proper for serious Plays. Which supposition being granted (as it was briefly made out in that discourse, by shewing how Verse might be made _natural_): it asserted that this way of writing was a help to the Poet's judgement, by putting bounds to a wild, overflowing Fancy. I think therefore it will not be hard for me to make good what it was to prove. "But you add, that, 'Were this let pass; yet he who wants judgement in the liberty of the Fancy, may as well shew the defect of it, when he is confined to Verse: for he who has judgement, will avoid errors; and he who has it not will commit them in all kinds of writing.' "This argument, as you have taken it from a most acute person, so I confess it carries much weight in it. But by using the word Judgement here indefinitely, you seem to have put a fallacy upon us. I grant he who has judgement, that is, so profound, so strong, so infallible a judgement that he needs no helps to keep it always poised and upright, will commit no faults; either in Rhyme, or out of it: and, on the other extreme, he who has a judgement so weak and crazed, that no helps can correct or amend it, shall write scurvily out of Rhyme; and worse in it. But the first of these Judgements, is nowhere to be found; and the latter is not fit to write at all. "To speak, therefore, of Judgement as it is in the best Poets; they who have the greatest proportion of it, want other helps than from it within: as, for example, you would be loath to say that he who w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147  
148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
judgement
 

argument

 

confined

 

commit

 

bounds

 
Judgement
 
proper
 

writing

 
carries
 

confess


person

 

weight

 
defect
 

liberty

 
errors
 

scurvily

 
correct
 
extreme
 

crazed

 

Judgements


proportion

 

faults

 

indefinitely

 

greatest

 

fallacy

 

poised

 

upright

 

infallible

 

strong

 

profound


easiness

 
renders
 

luxuriant

 

commonly

 

fruitful

 
labour
 

circumscribes

 
overthrow
 

consequence

 
depends

concernment
 

effect

 
CRITES
 
endeavoured
 

vindicate

 

remains

 
answer
 

objections

 
Couplet
 

briefly