ABSTRACT
In a Preface to the Earl of Rochester's play Valentillian, published posthumously, an anonymous friend of the author spoke of wit as 'a true and lively expression of Nature' and approved of Dryden's definition 'a Propriety of Thoughts and Words-or Thoughts and Words elegantly adapted to the Subject'. He went on to give advice to the would-be witty poet, adjuring him among other things not to write verses like Donne's (Valentinian: A Tragedy. As 'tis Alter'd by the late Earl of Rochester . .. , 1685, The Preface, b3 v) •
. . . let him remember hereafter, that Verses have Feet given 'em, either to walk, graceful and smooth, and sometimes with Majesty and State, like Virgil's, or to run, light and easie, like Ovid's, not to stand stock-still like Dr Donne's, or to hobble like indigested Prose ....
