an;" and we know that
it was most successful on the stage.

Sir Walter says, "that during the space which occurred between the
writing of the 'Conquest of Grenada,' and 'Aurengzebe,' Dryden's
researches into the nature and causes of harmony of versification, led
him to conclude that the Drama ought to be emancipated from the fetters
of rhyme--and that the perusal of Shakspeare, on whom Dryden had now
turned his attention, led him to feel that something further might be
attained in tragedy than the expression of exaggerated sentiment in
smooth verse, and that the scene ought to represent, not a fanciful set
of agents exerting their superhuman faculties in a fairyland of the
poet's own creation, but human characters acting from the direct and
energetic influence of human passions, with whose emotions the audience
might sympathize, because akin to the feelings of their own hearts. When
Dryden had once discovered that fear and pity were more likely to be
excited by other causes than the logic of metaphysical love, or the
dictates of fantastic honour, he must have found that rhyme sounded as
unnatural in the dialogue of characters drawn upon the usual scale of
humanity, as the plate and mail of chivalry would have appeared on the
persons of the actors." All this is finely said; but does it not assume
the point in question? Dryden may have learned at last from the study of
Shakspeare, (in whom, however, he was well read many years before, as
witness his Essay on Dramatic Poesy,) that "something further might be
attained in tragedy than the expression of exaggerated sentiment in
smooth verse." But we do not see the necessity of the inference, "that
rhyme sounded unnatural in the dialogue of characters drawn upon the
usual scale of humanity." Is rhyme self-evidently unnatural in the
expression, in verse, of strong and deep human passion? To that
question, put thus generally, the right answer is--NO. And is it, then,
necessarily unnatural in the drama?

Like all great powers, that of rhyme is a secret past finding out. In
itself a mere barbarous jingle, it yet gives perfection to speech. The
music of versification has endless varieties of measures, and rhyme
lends enchantment to them all. Not an affection, emotion, or passion of
the soul that may not be soothed by its syllablings, enkindled, or
raised to rapture. Pity and terror, joy and grief, love and devotion,
are all alike sensible of its influence; as the sweet similaritie