------- Vos exemplaria Graeca
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.


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