"We have borrowed nothing from them. Our Plots are weaved in English looms. We endeavour, therein, to follow the variety and greatness of Characters, which are derived to us from SHAKESPEARE and FLETCHER, The copiousness and well knitting of the Intrigues, we have from JOHNSON. And for the Verse itself, we have English precedents, of elder date than any of CORNEILLE's plays. Not to name our old Comedies before SHAKESPEARE, which are all writ in verse of six feet or Alexandrines, such as the French now use: I can show in SHAKESPEARE, many Scenes of Rhyme together; and the like in BEN. JOHNSON's tragedies. In _CATILINE_ and _SEJANUS_, sometimes, thirty or forty lines. I mean, besides the Chorus or the Monologues; which, by the way, showed BEN. no enemy to this way of writing: especially if you look upon his _Sad Shepherd_, which goes sometimes upon rhyme, sometimes upon blank verse; like a horse, who eases himself upon trot and amble. You find him, likewise, commending FLETCHER's pastoral of the _Faithful Shepherdess_: which is, for the most part, [in] Rhyme; though not refined to that purity, to which it hath since been brought. And these examples are enough to clear us from, a servile imitation of the French. "But to return, from whence I have digressed. I dare boldly affirm these two things of the English Drama, "First. That we have many Plays of ours as regular as any of theirs; and which, besides, have more variety of Plot and Characters. And "Secondly. That in most of the irregular Plays of SHAKESPEARE or FLETCHER (for BEN. JOHNSON's are for the most part regular), there is a more masculine Fancy, and greater Spirit in all the Writing, than there is in any of the French. "I could produce, even in SHAKESPEARE's and FLETCHER's _Works_, some Plays which are almost exactly formed; as the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ and the _Scornful Lady_. But because, generally speaking, SHAKESPEARE, who writ first, did not perfectly observe the laws of Comedy; and FLETCHER, who came nearer to perfection [_in this respect_], yet, through carelessness, made many faults: I will take the pattern of a perfect Play from BEN. JOHNSON, who was a careful and learned observer of the Dramatic Laws; and, from all his Comedies, I shall select the _Silent Woman_ [p. 597], of which I will make a short examen [_examination_], according to those Rules which the French observe." As NEANDER was beginning to examine the _Silent Woman_: EUGENIUS, looking earnestly upon him, "I beseech you, NEANDER!" said he, "gratify the company, and me in particular, so far, as, before you speak of the Play, to give us a Character of the Author: and tell us, frankly, your opinion! whether you do not think all writers, both French and English, ought to give place to him?"