Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus; et isti
  Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.

But he would never have allowed him to have called a slow man hasty, or a hasty writer a slow drudge[7], as Juvenal explains it: 

—­Canibus pigris, scabieque vetusta Laevibus, et siccae lambentibus ora lucernae, Nomen erit, Pardus, Tygris, Leo; si quid adhuc est Quod fremit in terris violentius[8].

Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the imperfections of his mistress: 

  Nigra [Greek:  melichroos] est, immunda et foetida [Greek:  akosmos]. 
  Balba loqui non quit, [Greek:  traulizei]; muta pudens est, &c.

But to drive it ad AEthiopem cygnum is not to be endured.  I leave him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the other side, and without farther considering him, than I have the rest of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because they are not qualified for judges.  It remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters[9].  Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his art of poetry.

  —­Vos exemplaria Graeca
  Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.

Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy; which requires to be built in a larger compass.  I could give an instance in the “Oedipus Tyrannus,” which was the master piece of Sophocles; but I reserve it for a more fit occasion, which I hope to have hereafter.  In my style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disincumbered myself from rhyme.  Not that I condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present purpose.  I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my author servilely:  Words and phrases must of necessity receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatic poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and, as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should by the force of his own genius perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who come after him.  The occasion is fair, and the subject would be pleasant to handle the difference of styles betwixt him and Fletcher, and wherein, and how far they are both to be imitated.  But since I must not be over-confident of my own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent.  Yet, I hope, I may affirm, and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to any thing which I have written in this kind.

Footnotes: 
1.  That the reader may himself judge of the justice of Dryden’s
   censure, I subjoin the argument on this knotty point, as it is
   stated by Hippolytus and his mistress in the 5th act of the
   “Phedre” of Racine.