Ut pictura poesis erit. &c.—­
  Haec amat obscurum, vult haec sub luce videri,
  Judicis argutum quae formidat acumen. 
                              Et quae
  Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit.

In “Bartholomew Fair,” or the lowest kind of comedy, that degree of heightening is used, which is proper to set off that subject:  It is true the author was not there to go out of prose, as he does in his higher arguments of comedy, “The Fox” and “Alchemist;” yet he does so raise his matter in that prose, as to render it delightful; which he could never have performed, had he only said or done those very things, that are daily spoken or practised in the fair:  for then the fair itself would be as full of pleasure to an ingenious person as the play, which we manifestly see it is not.  But he hath made an excellent lazar of it; the copy is of price, though the original be vile.  You see in “Catiline” and “Sejanus,” where the argument is great, he sometimes ascends to verse, which shews he thought it not unnatural in serious plays; and had his genius been as proper for rhyme as it was for humour, or had the age in which he lived attained to as much knowledge in verse as ours, it is probable he would have adorned those subjects with that kind of writing.

Thus Prose, though the rightful prince, yet is by common consent deposed, as too weak for the government of serious plays:  and he failing, there now start up two competitors; one, the nearer in blood, which is Blank Verse; the other, more fit for the ends of government, which is Rhyme.  Blank Verse is, indeed, the nearer Prose, but he is blemished with the weakness of his predecessor.  Rhyme (for I will deal clearly) has somewhat of the usurper in him; but he is brave, and generous, and his dominion pleasing.  For this reason of delight, the ancients (whom I will still believe as wise as those who so confidently correct them) wrote all their tragedies in verse, though they knew it most remote from conversation.

But I perceive I am falling into the danger of another rebuke from my opponent; for when I plead that the ancients used verse, I prove not that they would have admitted rhyme, had it then been written.  All I can say is only this, that it seems to have succeeded verse by the general consent of poets in all modern languages; for almost all their serious plays are written in it; which, though it be no demonstration that therefore they ought to be so, yet at least the practice first, and then the continuation of it, shews that it attained the end, which was to please; and if that cannot be compassed here, I will be the first who shall lay it down:  for I confess my chief endeavours are to delight the age in which I live.  If the humour of this be for low comedy, small accidents, and raillery, I will force my genius to obey it, though with more reputation I could write in verse.  I know I am not so fitted by nature to write comedy: