Ovid, whom you accuse for luxuriancy in verse, had perhaps been farther guilty of it, had he writ in prose. And for your instance of Ben Jonson, who, you say, writ exactly without the help of rhyme; you are to remember, it is only an aid to a luxuriant fancy, which his was not: as he did not want imagination, so none ever said he had much to spare. Neither was verse then refined so much, to be an help to that age, as it is to ours. Thus then the second thoughts being usually the best, as receiving the maturest digestion from judgment, and the last and most mature product of those thoughts being artful and laboured verse, it may well be inferred, that verse is a great help to a luxuriant fancy; and this is what that argument which you opposed was to evince. Neander was pursuing this discourse so eagerly, that Eugenius had called to him twice or thrice, ere he took notice that the barge stood still, and that they were at the foot of Somerset-stairs, where they had appointed it to land. The company were all sorry to separate so soon, though a great part of the evening was already spent; and stood awhile looking back on the water, upon which the moon-beams played, and made it appear like floating quicksilver: at last they went up through a crowd of French people,[153] who were merrily dancing in the open air, and nothing concerned for the noise of guns, which had alarmed the town that afternoon. Walking thence together to the Piazze, they parted there; Eugenius and Lisideius to some pleasant appointment they had made, and Crites and Neander to their several lodgings. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 106: The third of June, 1665. See the "Annus Mirabilis," and the Notes, Vol. IX. p. 108, 161. Our author, in his poem to the Duchess, mentions the circumstance of the cannon being heard at London: When from afar we heard the cannon play, Like distant thunder on a shiny day. Vol. IX. p. 79. ] [Footnote 107: James Duke of York, afterwards James II.] [Footnote 108: There is something very striking in this description, which was doubtless copied from reality.] [Footnote 109: This is a favourable representation of the character of Sir Robert Howard, who is described by his contemporaries as very vain, obstinate, and opinionative, and as such was ridiculed by Shadwell under the character of Sir Positive Atall, in the "Impertinents."]