 Henry Craik, ed.  English Prose.  1916. Vol. III. Seventeenth
Century A Defence of Rhyme in Tragedy By John Dryden (1631–1700)
From Essay of Dramatic Poesy  IT concerns me less than any, said
Neander (seeing he had ended), to reply to this discourse;
because when I should have proved, that verse may be natural in
plays, yet I should always be ready to confess, that those which
I have written in this kind come short of that perfection which
is required. Yet since you are pleased I should undertake this
province, I will do it, though with all imaginable respect and
deference, both to that person from whom you have borrowed your
strongest arguments, and to whose judgment, when I have said
all, I finally submit. But before I proceed to answer your
objections, I must first remember you, that I exclude all comedy
from my defence; and next, that I deny not but blank verse may
be also used; and content myself only to assert, that in serious
plays, where the subject and characters are great, and the plot
unmixed with