Dryden himself has spoken memorably upon rhyme.
Discussing the imputed unnaturalness of the rhymed 'repartee' he says:
'Suppose we acknowledge it: how comes this confederacy to be more
displeasing to you than in a dance which is well contrived? You see
there the united design of many persons to make up one figure; ... the
confederacy is plain amongst them, for chance could never produce
anything so beautiful; and yet there is nothing in it that shocks your
sight ... 'Tis an art which appears; but it appears only like the
shadowings of painture, which, being to cause the rounding of it, cannot
be absent; but while that is considered, they are lost: so while we
attend to the other beauties of the matter, the care and labour of the
rhyme is carried from us, or at least drowned in its own sweetness, as
bees are sometimes buried in their honey.' In this exquisite passage
Dryden seems to have come near, though not quite to have hit, the
central argument for rhyme--its power of creating a beautiful
atmosphere, in which what is expressed may be caught away from the
associations of common life and harmoniously enshrined. For Racine, with
his prepossessions of sublimity and perfection, some such barrier
between his universe and reality was involved in the very nature of his
art. His rhyme is like the still clear water of a lake, through which we
can see, mysteriously separated from us and changed and beautified, the
forms of his imagination, 'quivering within the wave's intenser day.'
And truly not seldom are they 'so sweet, the sense faints picturing
them'!

Oui, prince, je languis, je brule pour Thesee ...
Il avait votre port, vos yeux, votre langage,
Cette noble pudeur colorait son visage,
Lorsque de notre Crete il traversa les flots,
Digne sujet des voeux des filles de Minos.
Que faisiez-vous alors? Pourquoi, sans Hippolyte,
Des heros de la Grece assembla-t-il l'elite?
Pourquoi, trop jeune encor, ne putes-vous alors
Entrer dans le vaisseau qui le mit sur nos bords?
Par vous aurait peri le monstre de la Crete,
Malgre tous les detours de sa vaste retraite:
Pour en developper l'embarras incertain
Ma soeur du fil fatal eut arme votre main.
Mais non: dans ce dessein je l'aurais devancee;
L'amour m'en eut d'abord inspire la pensee;
C'est moi, prince, c'est moi dont l'utile secours
Vous eut du labyrinthe enseigne les detours.
Que de soins m'eut coutes cett