Nobody took them seriously except themselves, and for the most part they were bad rhymesters of decadent verse.
"The Lion and the Mouse A Story of an American Life"
Charles Klein
"I shall even dare to advance the statement that together with the respect for the Sabbath, the last spark of poetic fire has been extinguished in the soul of our rhymesters.
"The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters"
George Sand, Gustave Flaubert Translated by A.L. McKensie
But if these also may be reckoned among his precursors, the dismissal from stage service of the dolorous and drudging metre employed by the earliest school of theatrical rhymesters must be taken to mark a real step in advance; and in that case we possess at least a single example of the rhyming tragedies which had their hour between the last plays written wholly or partially in ballad metre and the first plays written in blank verse.
"A Study of Shakespeare"
Algernon Charles Swinburne