'First, give me leave, Sir, to remember you, that the argument against which you raised this objection, was only secondary: it was built on this hypothesis, that to write in verse was proper for serious plays. 5 Which supposition being granted (as it was briefly made out in that discourse, by showing how verse might be made natural), it asserted, that this way of writing was an help to the poet's judgment, by putting bounds to a wild overflowing fancy. I think, therefore, Io it will not be hard for me to make good what it was to prove1. But you add, that were this let pass, yet he who wants judgment in the liberty of his fancy, may as well show the defect of it when he is confined to verse; for he who has judgment will avoid. 15 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 judgment here indefinitely, 20 you seem to have put a fallacy upon us. I grant, he who has judgment, that is, so profound, so strong, so infallible a judgment, 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 25 extreme, he who has a judgment 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 judgments is no where to be found, and the latter is not fit to write at all. To speak therefore of 30 judgment 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 loth to say, that he who was endued with a sound judgment had1 1 BC add on that supposition. 3 is, BC. 2 or rather so infallible, BC. has, BC. no need of History, Geography, or Moral Philosophy, to write correctly. Judgment is indeed the masterworkman in a play; but he requires many subordinate hands, many tools to his assistance. And verse I affirm to be one of these; 'tis a rule and line by which he 5 keeps his building compact and even, which otherwise lawless imagination would raise either irregularly or loosely. At least, if the poet commits errors with this help, he would make greater and more without it: 'tis, in short, a slow and painful, but the surest kind of 10 working. Ovid, whom you accuse for luxuriancy in verse, had perhaps been farther guilty of it, had he writ in prose. And for your instance of Ben Johnson, who, you say, writ exactly without the help of rhyme; you are to remember, 'tis only an aid to a luxuriant fancy, 15 which his was not as he did not want imagination, so none ever said he had much to spare. Neither was verse then refined so much to be an help to that age, as it is to ours. Thus then the second thoughts being usually the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from 20 judgment, and the last and most mature product of those thoughts being artful and laboured verse, it may well be inferred, that verse is a great help to a luxuriant fancy; and this is what that argument which you opposed was to evince.' 25 Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, that Eugenius had called to him twice or thrice, ere he took notice that the barge stood still, and that they were at the foot of Somerset Stairs, where they had appointed it to land. The company were all sorry to separate so 30 soon, though a great part of the evening was already spent; and stood a-while looking back on the water, which the moon-beams played upon1, and made it appear like floating quick-silver: at last they went up 1 upon which the moon-beams played, BC. through a crowd of French people, who were merrily dancing in the open air, and nothing concerned for the noise of guns which had alarmed the town that afternoon. Walking thence together to the Piazze, they 5 parted there; Eugenius and Lisideius to some pleasant appointment they had made, and Crites and Neander to their several lodgings. PROLOGUE TO SECRET LOVE, OR, THE MAIDEN QUEEN (1668) 1. He who writ this, not without pains and thought, II. The Unities of Action, Place, and Time; III. But while dead colours he with care did lay, IV. Plays are like towns, which howe'er fortified V. And with that art you make approaches now, VI. Ours, therefore, humbly would attend your doom, 5 IO 15 A DEFENCE OF AN ESSAY OF DRAMATIC POESY BEING AN ANSWER TO THE PREFACE OF 'THE GREAT FAVOURITE, OR, THE DUKE OF LERMA' (Prefixed to the Second Edition of the Indian THE former edition of The Indian Emperor being full of faults, which had escaped the printer, I have been willing to overlook this second with more care: and though I could not allow myself so much time as was 5 necessary, yet by that little I have done, the press is freed from some gross errors which it had to answer for before. As for the more material faults of writing, which are properly mine, though I see many of them, I want leisure to amend them. 'Tis enough for those 10 who make one poem the business of their lives, to leave that correct: yet, excepting Virgil, I never met with any which was so in any language. But while I was thus employed about this impression, there came to my hands a new printed play, called, 15 The Great Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma; the author of which, a noble and most ingenious person, has done |