I'm Not Going to Fall for That, but I Wouldn't Mind a Bit of Rhyme

Rhyme is the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre. The measure is english heroic verse without rhyme, as that of homer in greek and of virgil in latin. Although he admits that some good poets have used, he goes on to say, graced, indeed, since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custum. So in other words, they used rhyme because they thought everyone did, and so you had to. But much to their own vexation, hindrance and constraint, to express many things otherwise, and for the most part, worse than else they would have expressed them.