Cowley and Denham likewise obtain much credit for the introduction of the new measure; but the chief innovator is Edmund Waller (1606–87). Dryden, in his dedication to _The Rival Ladies_ says, “Rime has all the advantages of prose besides its own. But the excellence and dignity of it were never fully known till Mr. Waller first taught it.” An extract from Waller will suffice: While in this park I sing, the listening deer Attend my passion, and forget to fear; When to the beeches I report my flame, They bow their heads, as if they felt the same, To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers, With loud complaints, they answer me in showers. The note here is quite different from that of the previous extract. The tread of the meter is steady and almost uniform, and the pauses cluster about the middle and the end of the lines. It must be noted, too, that a large proportion of Waller’s poetry took this form. Dryden adopted the heroic couplet, but he improved upon the wooden respectability of his predecessors’ verse. While he retained all the couplet’s steadiness and force, he gave it an additional vigor, a sinewy elegance, and a noble rhythm and beauty. It is worth while giving another example of his couplet: A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged; Without unspotted, innocent within, She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly, And doomed to death, though fated not to die. DRYDEN, _The Hind and the Panther_ In its own fashion this passage is as melodious and powerful as some of the noblest lines of Milton. In other forms of poetry the style contains little to be commented upon. The _blank verse_ continues the disintegration that (with the exception of the verse of Milton) began with the death of Shakespeare. We give a good example of this Restoration blank verse: Through a close lane as I pursued my journey, And meditating on the last night’s vision, I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself; Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red, And palsy shook her head; her hands seemed withered; And on her crooked shoulder had she wrapped The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging. OTWAY, _The Orphan_ In this passage we can observe the absence of the high poetic fire of the Elizabethans and the lack of the thunderous depth of Milton. Observe the regularity of the beat, the uniformity of the pauses, and the frequency of the hypermetrical ending. There is, nevertheless, a certain somber, dogged attraction about the style of the passage. The average blank verse of the time is much less regular, and much less attractive.