acquiant the reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice of
the ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be
our masters. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his art of poetry--
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.
Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for English tragedy; which
requires to be built in a larger compass. I could give an instance in the Oedipus
Tyrannus, which was the masterpiece of Sophocles; but I reserve it for a more fit
occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style, I have professed to imitate
the divine Shakespeare; which that I might perform more freely, I have
disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but that
this is more proper to my present purpose. I hope I need not to explain myself,
that I have not copied my author servilely: Words and phrases must of necessity
receive a change in succeeding ages; but it is almost a miracle that much of his
language remains so pure; and that he who began dramatic poetry amongst us,
untaught by any, and as Ben Jonson tells us, without learning, should by the
force of his own genius perform so much, that in a manner he has left no praise
for any who come after him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be
pleasant to handle the difference of styles betwixt him and Fletcher, and wherein,
and how far they are both to be imitated. But since I must not be over-confident
of my own performance after him, it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I
hope, I may affirm, and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled
myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt
Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to anything which I have written in this kind.
