"Nor will it serve you to object, that however you manage it, 'tis still known to be a Play; and consequently the dialogue of two persons, understood to be the labour of one Poet. For a Play is still an Imitation of Nature. We know we are to be deceived, and we desire to be so; but no man ever was deceived, but with a _probability of Truth_; for who will suffer a gross lie to be fastened upon him? Thus, we sufficiently understand that the scenes [_i.e., the scenery which was just now coming into use on the English Stage_], which represent cities and countries to us, are not really such, but only painted on boards and canvas. But shall that excuse the ill painture [_painting_] or designment of them? Nay rather, ought they not to be laboured with so much the more diligence and exactness, to help the Imagination? since the Mind of Man doth naturally bend to, and seek after Truth; and therefore the nearer anything comes to the Imitation of it, the more it pleases. "Thus, you see! your Rhyme is incapable of expressing the greatest thoughts, naturally; and the lowest, it cannot, with any grace. For what is more unbefitting the majesty of Verse, than 'to call a servant,' or 'bid a door be shut' in Rhyme? And yet, this miserable necessity you are forced upon! "'But Verse,' you say, 'circumscribes a quick and luxuriant Fancy, which would extend itself too far, on every subject; did not the labour which is required to well-turned and polished Rhyme, set bounds to it [pp. 492-493]. Yet this argument, if granted, would only prove, that _we may write better in Verse_, but not _more naturally_. "Neither is it able to evince that. For he who _wants_ judgement to confine his Fancy, in Blank Verse; may want it as well, in Rhyme: and he who has it, will avoid errors in both kinds [pp. 498, 571], Latin Verse was as great a confinement to the imagination of those poets, as Rhyme to ours: and yet, you find OVID saying too much on every subject. "_Nescivit_, says SENECA, _quod bene cessit relinquere_: of which he [OVID] gives you one famous instance in his description of the Deluge. "_Omnia pontus erat, deerant quoque litora ponto._ Now all was sea; nor had that sea a shore. "Thus OVID's Fancy was not limited by Verse; and VIRGIL needed not Verse to have bounded his. "In our own language, we see BEN. JOHNSON confining himself to what ought to be said, even in the liberty of Blank Verse; and yet CORNEILLE, the most judicious of the French poets, is still varying the same Sense a hundred ways, and dwelling eternally upon the same subject, though confined by Rhyme. "Some other exceptions, I have to Verse; but these I have named, being, for the most part, already public: I conceive it reasonable they should, first, be answered."