This may truly be called a vulgar Error, because it is a Mistake of which none but the Vulgar are guilty of. Though there is a Kind of harmonious Jingle in Rhyme, which makes the Composition have an agreeable Sound, yet it is looked upon by all Judges to be the lowest Kind of Poetry. And though Pope, and other great Writers, have succeeded to Admiration in the Improvement of it, yet it is in Reality nothing but the barbarous Remains of the wild Taste of our Ancestors; not to mention how it cramps the Genius of a Writer, after he has hit upon a favourite Thought, to be forced to look out for a Rhyme, which must, in Spite of every Thing that can be said in Favour of it, be exceeding laborious. And notwithstanding Poets endeavour to hide this Labour and Pains they have been at, and affect to have set down their first Thoughts, yet, as Horace observes, the foul Copy of a good Writer will always have a great Number of Blots and Alterations in it: This is true of all Poetical Composition; but a Poem which is wrote in Rhyme, must, according to the Nature of the Thing, be more laboured than one that is not. And even Prior himself, whose Works are allowed to be all Ease and Elegance, is said to have taken more Pains with his Composition, than any other Writer of Eminence. That very Ease and Elegance, which we perceive in the best Poets, is the Result of great Pains and Study, and is no other than a judicious Choice of Words and Phrases, till they have found some that will suit. And however a Poetical Author may boast of writing his first Thoughts, we cannot possibly have any Testimony of it but his own. Besides, when we have done all, Verses wrote in Rhyme are nothing near so musical as those which are without it. Where shall we find Verses, among even the best of our English Poets who wrote in Rhyme, which are equal in Smoothness and Harmony to these two Lines in Theocritus? [Greek: Adion, ô poiman, to teon melos, ê to kataches] [Greek: Tên apo tas petras kataleixetai hupsothen hudôr.] _Id. 1._ Or these of Ovid, which, though they are far from being the most smooth in the Book, are however more harmonious than any we can produce now. _Sic ubi Fata vocant udis abjectis in Herbis,_ _Ad vada Mæandri, concinit albus Olor._ Though the first of these Verses makes a Whistling like the Reeds in a River, the last runs so glib, that it is ready to slip from under one before one would have it. We acknowledge that the Latin Language is a great Help to the Running of a Verse, and if the Reader insists upon that to be the only pre-eminence which Latin Verses have over English, he is very welcome to think as he likes best. Moreover, if he is so fond of Rhyme, we can inform him of a Book which is wrote, in Latin Rhyme, and is very much at his Service: The Title of the Book is Drunken Barnaby; which, as it is wrote in a dead Language, will most likely remain an everlasting Burlesque upon the Barbarity of Rhyme.