his glory, if he overcome; and to the opinion of his generosity, if he be vanquished, since he engages at so great odds; and, so like a cavalier, undertakes the protection of the weaker party.  I have only to fear, on my own behalf, that so good a cause as mine may not suffer by my ill management, or weak defence; yet I cannot in honour but take the glove when it is offered me; though I am only a champion by succession, and no more able to defend the right of Aristotle and Horace, than an infant Dimock[A] to maintain the title of a king.

[Footnote A:  The family of Dimock, or Dymock, are hereditary champions of England; and, as such, obliged to maintain the king’s title in single combat against all challengers.]

For my own concernment in the controversy, it is so small, that I can easily be contented to be driven from a few notions of dramatic poesy; especially by one, who has the reputation of understanding all things:  and I might justly make that excuse for my yielding to him, which the philosopher made to the emperor; why should I offer to contend with him, who is master of more than twenty legions of arts and sciences?  But I am forced to fight, and therefore it will be no shame to be overcome.

Yet I am so much his servant, as not to meddle with any thing which does not concern me in his preface:  therefore I leave the good sense and other excellencies of the first twenty lines, to be considered by the critics.  As for the play of “The Duke of Lerma,” having so much altered and beautified it as he has done, it can justly belong to none but him.  Indeed they must be extremely ignorant, as well as envious, who would rob him of that honour; for you see him putting in his claim to it, even in the first two lines: 

  Repulse upon repulse, like waves thrown back,
  That slide to hung upon obdurate rocks.

After this, let detraction do its worst; for if this be not his, it deserves to be.  For my part, I declare for distributive justice; and from this, and what follows, he certainly deserves those advantages, which he acknowledges to have received from the opinion of sober men.

In the next place, I must beg leave to observe his great address in courting the reader to his party:  For, intending to assault all poets, both ancient and modern, he discovers not his whole design at once, but seems only to aim at me, and attacks me on my weakest side, my defence of verse.

To begin with me, he gives me the compellation of “The Author of a Dramatic Essay;” which is a little discourse in dialogue, for the most part borrowed from the observations of others:  therefore, that I may not be wanting to him in civility, I return his compliment, by calling him, “The Author of the Duke of Lerma.”

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.”