Leigh Hunt's theory was that Pope, with all his skill, had spoiled instead of perfecting his instrument, and that the last true master of the heroic couplet had been Dryden, on whom the verse of _Rimini_ is avowedly modelled. The result is an odd blending of the grave and the colloquial cadences of Dryden, without his characteristic nerve and energy in either:-- "The prince, at this, would bend on her an eye Cordial enough, and kiss her tenderly; Nor, to say truly, was he slow in common To accept the attentions of this lovely woman, But the meantime he took no generous pains, By mutual pleasing, to secure his gains; He entered not, in turn, in her delights, Her books, her flowers, her taste for rural sights; Nay, scarcely her sweet singing minded he Unless his pride was roused by company; Or when to please him, after martial play, She strained her lute to some old fiery lay Of fierce Orlando, or of Ferumbras, Or Ryan's cloak, or how by the red grass In battle you might know where Richard was." It is usually said that to the example thus set by Leigh Hunt in _Rimini_ is due the rhythmical form alike of _Endymion_ and _Epipsychidion_, of Keats's _Epistles_ to his friends and Shelley's _Letter to Maria Gisborne_. Certainly the _Epistles_ of Keats, both as to sentiment and rhythm, are very much in Hunt's manner. But the earliest of them, that to G. F. Mathew, is dated Nov. 1815: when _Rimini_ was not yet published, and when it appears Keats did not yet know Hunt personally. He may indeed have known his poem in MS., through Clarke or others. Or the likeness of his work to Hunt's may have arisen independently: as to style, from a natural affinity of feeling: and as to rhythm, from a familiarity with the disyllabic rhyme and the 'overflow' as used by some of the Elizabethan writers, particularly by Spenser in _Mother Hubbard's Tale_ and by Browne in _Britannia's Pastorals_. At all events the appearance of _Rimini_ tended unquestionably to encourage and confirm him in his practice.