Page:An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.djvu/110

90 not to write at all, or to attempt some other way. There is no bays to be expected in their walks: tentanda via est, quà me quoque possum tollere humo n.

This way of writing in verse they have only left free to us; our age is arrived to a perfection in it, which they never knew; and which (if we may guess by what of theirs we have seen in verse, as The Faithful Shepherdess, and Sad Shepherd) 'tis probable they never could have reached. For the genius of every age is different; and though ours excel in this, I deny not but to imitate nature in that perfection which they did in prose, is a greater commendation than to write in verse exactly. As for what you have added—that the people are not generally inclined to like this way,—if it were true, it would be no wonder, that betwixt the shaking off an old habit, and the introducing of a new, there should be difficulty. Do we not see them stick to Hopkins' and Sternhold's psalms, and forsake those of David, I mean Sandys his translation n of them? If by the people you understand the multitude, the, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong: their judgment is a mere lottery. Est ubi plebs recti putat, est ubi peccat n. Horace says it of the vulgar, judging poesy. But if you mean the mixed audience of the populace and the noblesse, I dare confidently affirm that a great part of the latter sort are already favourable to verse; and that no serious plays written since the king's return have been more kindly received by them, than The Siege of Rhodes, the Mustapha n, The Indian Queen, and Indian Emperor.

'But I come now to the inference of your first