with no more justice, than if English poesy should be made ridiculous for the sake of the Water-poet's n rhymes. Our language is noble, full, and significant; and I know not why he who is master of it may not clothe ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, if he use the same diligence in his choice of words: delectus verborum origo est eloquentiæ n. It was the saying of Julius Cæsar, one so curious in his, that none of them can be changed but for a worse. One would think, unlock the door, was a thing as vulgar as could be spoken; and yet Seneca could make it sound high and lofty in his Latin:
Reserate chisos regii fiostes laris n.
Set wide the palace gates.
'But I turn from this exception, both because it happens not above twice or thrice in any play that those vulgar thoughts are used; and then too, (were there no other apology to be made, yet,) the necessity of them, which is alike in all kind of writing, may excuse them. For if they are little and mean in rhyme, they are of consequence such in blank verse[1] Besides that the great eagerness and precipitation with which they are spoken, makes us rather mind the substance than the dress; that for which they are spoken, rather than what is spoke. For they are always the effect of some hasty concernment, and something of consequence depends on them.
'Thus, Crites, I have endeavoured to answer your objections; it remains only that I should vindicate an argument for verse, which you have gone about to
- ↑ A om. For if they . . .blank verse.
