nger 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, 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 it 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_ [p. 582]. If the Humour of this, be for Low Comedy, small Accidents
[_Incidents_], and Raillery; I will force my genius to obey it: though,
with more reputation, I could write in Verse. I know, I am not so fitted,
by nature, to write Comedy. I want that gaiety of Humour which is required
to it. My conversation is dull and slow. My Humour is saturnine and
reserved. In short, I am none of those, who endeavour to break jests in
company, or make repartees. So that those who decry my Comedies, do me no
injury, except it be in point of profit. Reputation in _them_ is the last
thing to which I shall pretend.

I beg pardon for entertaining the reader with so ill a subject: but
before I quit that argument, which was the cause of this digression; I
cannot but take notice how I am corrected for my quotation of SENECA, in
my defence of Plays in Verse.

My words were these [p. 570]: "Our language is noble, full, and
significant; and I know not why he, who is master of it, may not clothe
ordinary things in it, as decently as the Latin; if he use the same
diligence in his _choice of words_."

One would think, "Unlock the door," was a thing as vulgar as could be
spoken: yet SENECA could make it sound high and lofty in his Latin.

_Reserate clusos regii postes Laris_.

But he says of me, _That being filled with the precedents of the Ancients
who Writ their Plays in Verse, I commend the thing; declaring our language
to be full, noble, and significant, and charging all the defects upon the_
ill placing of words; _which I prove by quoting SENECA's loftily
expressing such an ordinary thing as_ shutting the door.

Here he manifestly mistakes. For I spoke not of the Placing, but the
Choice of words: for which I quoted that aphorism of JULIUS CAESAR,
_Delectu