"Another way of the ancients, which the French follow, and our stage has now lately practised, is, to write in rhyme; and this is the dispute betwixt many ingenious persons, whether verse in rhyme, or verse without the sound, which may be called _blank_ verse, (though a hard expression,) is to be preferred. But take the question largely, and it is never to be decided; but, by right application, I suppose it may; for in the general, they are both proper, that is, one for a play, the other for a poem or copy of verses; a blank verse being as much too low for one, as rhyme is unnatural for the other. A poem, being a premeditated form of thoughts upon designed occasions, ought not to be unfurnished of any harmony in words or sound; the other is presented as the present effect of accidents not thought of: so that it is impossible it should be equally proper to both these, unless it were possible that all persons were born so much more than poets, that verses were not to be composed by them, but already made in them. Some may object, that this argument is trivial, because, whatever is shewed, it is known still to be but a play; but such may as well excuse an ill scene, that is not naturally painted, because they know it is only a scene, and not really a city or country. "But there is yet another thing which makes verse upon the stage appear more unnatural; that is, when a piece of a verse is made up by one that knew not what the other meant to say, and the former verse answered as perfectly in sound as the last is supplied in measure; so that the smartness of a reply, which has its beauty by coming from sudden thoughts, seems lost by that which rather looks like a design of two, than the answer of one. It may be said, that rhyme is such a confinement to a quick and luxuriant fancy, that it gives a stop to its speed, till slow judgment comes in to assist it; but this is no argument for the question in hand: for the dispute is not, which way a man may write best in, but which is most proper for the subject he writes upon; and, if this were let pass, the argument is yet unsolved in itself: for he that wants judgment in the liberty of his fancy, may as well shew the defect of it in its confinement: and, to say truth, he that has judgment will avoid the errors, and he that wants it will commit them both. It may be objected, it is improbable that any should speak _extempore_ as well as Beaumont and Fletcher makes them, though in blank verse: I do not only acknowledge that, but that it is also improbable any will write so well that way. But if that may be allowed improbable, I believe it may be concluded impossible that any should speak as good verses in rhyme, as the best poets have writ; and therefore, that which seems nearest to what it intends, is ever to be preferred. Nor is great thoughts more adorned by verse, than verse unbeautified by mean ones; so that verse seems not only unfit in the