"
But (that I may pass over his salute) he takes notice of my great
pains to prove rhyme as natural in a serious play, and more effectual
than blank verse. Thus indeed I did state the question; but he tells
me, "I pursue that which I call natural in a wrong application; For
'tis not the question, whether rhyme, or not rhyme, be best, or most
natural for a serious subject, but what is nearest the nature of that
it represents."
If I have formerly mistaken the question, I must confess my ignorance
so far, as to say I continue still in my mistake: But he ought to have
proved that I mistook it; for it is yet but _gratis dictum_; I
still shall think I have gained my point, if I can prove that rhyme is
best, or most natural for a serious subject. As for the question as he
states it, whether rhyme be nearest the nature of what it represents,
I wonder he should think me so ridiculous as to dispute, whether prose
or verse be nearest to ordinary conversation.
It still remains for him to prove his inference; that, since verse
is granted to be more remote than prose from ordinary conversation,
therefore no serious plays ought to be writ in verse: and when he
clearly makes that good, I will acknowledge his victory as absolute as
he can desire it.
The question now is, which of us two has mistaken it; and if it appear
I have not, the world will suspect, "what gentleman that was, who was
allowed to speak twice in parliament, because he had not yet spoken to
the question[A];" and perhaps conclude it to be the same, who, as it
is reported, maintained a contradiction _in terminis_, in the
face of three hundred persons.
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