therefore, which a poet is to imitate, must be heightened with all the arts and ornaments of poesie; and must be such, as, strictly considered, could never be supposed spoken by any without premeditation.
As for what he urges, that a play will still be supposed to be a composition of several persons speaking ex tempore; and that good verses are the hardest things which can be imagined to be so spoken; I must crave leave to dissent from his opinion, as to the former part of it: for, if I am not deceived, a play is supposed to be the work of the poet, imitating or representing the conversation of several persons; and this I think to be as clear, as he thinks the contrary.
But I will be bolder, and do not doubt to make it good, though a paradox, that one great reason why prose is not to be used in serious plays, is, because it is too near the nature of converse: there may be too great a likeness; as the most skilful painters affirm, that there may be too near a resemblance in a picture: to take every lineament and feature, is not to make an excellent piece; but to take so much only as will make a beautiful resemblance of the whole; and, with an ingenious flattery of nature, to heighten the beauties of some parts, and hide the deformities of the rest. For so says Horace:
In Bartholomew Fair, or the lowest kind of comedy, that degree of heightning is used, which is proper to
