[16]
  "How finely would the sparks be caught to-day,
  Should a Whig poet write a Tory play,
  And you, possessed with rage before, should send
  Your random shot abroad and maul a friend?
  For you, we find, too often hiss and clap,
  Just as you live, speak, think, and fight--by hap.
  And poets, we all know, can change, like you,
  And are alone to their own interest true;
  Can write against all sense, nay even their own:
  The vehicle called _pension_ makes it down.
  _No fear of cudgels_, where there's hope of bread;
  A well-filled paunch forgets a _broken head_."

[17] I quote the passage at length, as evincing the difference between
Dryden's taste in comedy and that of Shadwell:--

"I have endeavoured to represent variety of humours (most of the persons
of the play differing in their characters from one another), which was
the practice of Ben Jonson, whom I think all drammatick poets ought to
imitate, though none are like to come near; he being the onely person
that appears to me to have made perfect representation of human life:
most other authors that I ever read, either have wilde romantick tales,
wherein they strein love and honour to that ridiculous height, that it
becomes burlesque; or in their lower comedies content themselves with
one or two humours at most, and those not near so perfect characters as
the admirable Jonson; always made, who never wrote comedy without seven
or eight considerable humours. I never saw one, except that of
Falstaffe, that was, in my judgment, comparable to any of Jonson's
considerable humours. You will pardon this digression when I tell you,
he is the man, of all the world, I most passionately admire for his
excellency in drammatick poetry.

"Though I have known _some of late so insolent to say_, that Ben Jonson
wrote his best playes without wit, imagining, that all the wit playes
consisted in bringing two persons upon the stage to break jest, and to
bob one another, which they call repartie, not considering, that there
is more wit and invention required in the finding out good humour and
matter proper for it, then in all their smart reparties; for, in the
writing of a humour, a man is confined not to swerve from the character,
and obliged to say nothing but what is proper to it; but in the playes
which have been wrote of late, there is no such thing as perfect
character, but the two chief persons are most commonly a swearing,
drinking, whoring ruffian for a lover, and impudent, ill-bred tomrig for
a mistress, and these are the fine people of the play; and there is that
latitude in this, that almost anything is proper for them to say; but
their chief subject is bawdy, and profaneness, which they call brisk
writing, when the most dissolute of men, that relish those things well
enough in private, are choked at 'em in publick: and, methinks, if there
were nothing but the ill manners of it, it should make poets avoid that
indecent way of writing."--_Preface to the Sullen Lovers_.

Lest this provocation should be insufficient, the Prologue of the same
piece has a fling at heroic plays. The poet says he has

  "No kind romantic lover in his play
  To sigh and whine out passion, such as may
  Charm waiting-women with heroic chime,
  And still resolve to live and die in rhyme;
  Such as your ears with love and honour feast,
  And play at crambo for three hours at least,
  That fight and wooe in verse in the same breath,
  And make similitude and love in death."

Whatever symptoms of reconciliation afterwards took place between the
poets, I greatly doubt if this first offence was ever cordially
forgiven.

[18] Vol. vii.

[19] See these offensive passages, vol. x.

[20] Vol. x.

[21]
  "The laurel makes a wit, a brave, the sword;
  And all are wise men at the Council board:
  Settle's a coward, 'cause fool Otway fought him,
  And Mulgrave is a wit, because I taught him."
_The Tory Poets_, 4to, 1682.

[22] Jonson is described as wearing a loose coachman's coat, frequenting
the Mermaid tavern, where he drunk seas of Canary, then reeling home to
bed, and, after a profuse perspiration, arising to his dramatic studies.
Shadwell appears, from the slight traits which remain concerning him, to
have followed, as closely as possible, the same course of pleasure and
of study. He was brutal in his conversation, and much addicted to the
use of opium, to which indeed he is said finally to have fallen a
victim.

[23] [I have inserted the word "first" because Scott's language is
ambiguous. In the list of the bookseller's collection in _3_ vols. 4to,
advertised in _Amphitryon_ (1690), "Mac-Flecknoe" and the Cromwell poem
do not appear. The later plays, however, soon gave material for another
volume, and in this 4-vol. edition, advertised in _Love Triumphant_,
1694, both poems figure.--ED.]

[24] Vol. x.

[25] See some specimens of these poems, vol. ix.

[26] Vol. vi.; vol. x

[27] In a satire against Settle, dated April 1682, entitled, "A
Character of the True-blue Protestant Poet," the author exclaims, "One
would believe it almost incredible, that any out of Bedlam should think
it possible, a yesterday's fool, an errant knave, a despicable coward,
and a prophane atheist, should be to-day by the same persons, a Cowley,
a man of honour, an hero, and a zealous upholder of the Protestant cause
and interest."

[28] In the "Deliverance," an address to the Prince of Orange, published
about 9th February 1689:--

  "Alas! the famous Settle, Durfey, Tate,
   That early propped the deep intrigues of state,
  Dull Whiggish lines the world could ne'er applaud,
  While your swift genius did appear abroad:
  And then, great Bayes, whose yet unconquered pen
  Wrote with strange force as well of beasts as men,
  Whose noble genius grieved from afar,
  Because new worlds of Bayes did not appear,
  Now to contend with the ambitious elf,
  Begins a civil war against himself," etc.

[29] In 1702, probably in the capacity of civic-laureate, he wrote
"_Carmen Irenicum_," upon the union of the two East India companies; and
long afterward, in 1717, he is mentioned by Dennis as still the city
poet.

[30] He published a translation of the tenth satire of Juvenal, in the
preface to which he rails plentifully against Dryden.

[31] [The omission of Marston here is remarkable, because no satirist
exhibits this extraordinary roughness of versification more glaringly.
Scott can hardly have read him.--ED.]

I infer, that the want of harmony was intentional, from these
expressions: "It is not for every one to relish a true and natural
satire; being of itself, besides the nature and inbred bitterness and
tartness of particulars, both hard of conceit and harsh of style, and
therefore cannot but be unpleasing both to the unskilful and
over-musical ear; the one being affected with only a shallow and easy,
the other with a smooth and current, disposition."--_Postscript to
Hall's Satires_.

[32] In "Venice Preserved," the character of the foolish senator
Antonio, now judiciously omitted in the representation was said to be
meant for Shaftesbury. But Crowne's "City Politics" contained the most
barefaced exhibition of all the popular leaders, including Shaftesbury,
College the Protestant joiner, Titus Oates, and Sir William Jones. The
last is described under the character of Bartoline, with the same
lisping imperfect enunciation which distinguished the original. Let us
remark, however, to the honour of Charles II., that in "Sir Courtly
Nice," another comedy which Crowne, by his express command, imitated
from the Spanish, the furious Tory is ridiculed in the character of
Hothead, as well as the fanatical Whig under that of Testimony.

[33] See the Prologues and Epilogues in vol. x.

[34] The concealed partiality of Charles towards Monmouth survived even
the discovery of the Rye-house Plot. He could not dissemble his
satisfaction upon seeing him after his surrender, and pressed his hand
affectionately.--See Monmouth's Diary in _Wellwood's Memorials_, p. 322.

[35] Carte, in his "life of the Duke of Ormond," says, that Monmouth's
resolutions varied from submission to resistance against the king,
according to his residence with the Duchess at Moor-park, who schooled
him to the former, or with his associates and partisans in the city, who
instigated him to more desperate resolutions.

[36] This Dryden might learn from Mulgrave, who mentions in his Memoirs,
as a means of Monmouth's advancement, the "great friendship which the
Duke of York had openly professed to his wife, a lady of wit and
reputation, who had both the ambition of making her husband
considerable, and the address of succeeding in it, by using her interest
in so friendly an uncle, whose design I believe was only to convert her.
Whether this familiarity of theirs was contrived or only connived at by
the Duke of Monmouth himself, is hard to determine. But I remember,
that, after these two princes had become declared enemies, the Duke of
York one day told me, with some emotion, as conceiving it a new mark of
his nephew's insolence, that he had forbidden his wife to receive any
more visits from him; at which I could not help frankly replying, that
I, who was not used to excuse him, yet could not hold from doing it in
that case, wishing his highness might have no juster cause to complain
of him. Upon which the duke, surprised to find me excuse his and my own
enemy, changed the discourse immediately."--_Memoirs_, p. 13.

I have perused letters from Sir Gideon Scott of Highchester to the
Duchess of Monmouth, recommending a prudent and proper attention to the
Duke of York: and this advice she probably followed; for, after her
husband's execution, James restored to her all her family estates.

[37] Bought by Mr. Luttrell, 11th April 1683. See it in vol. x. It is
expressly levelled against "The Duke of Guise," and generally against
Dryden as a court poet. I may, however be wrong in ascribing it to
Shadwell.

[38] I observe Anthony Wood, as well as Mr. Malone, suppose Hunt and the
Templar associated in the Reflections to be the same person. But in the
"Vindication of the Duke of Guise" Shadwell and they are spoke of as
three distinct persons.

[39] See vol. xvii. In this edition I have retained a specimen of a
translation which our author probably executed with peculiar care;
selecting it from the account of the barricades of Paris, as
illustrating the tragedy of "The Duke of Guise."

[40] [This story is told with great variation of figures. Johnson
mentions two and three guineas as the old and new prices; others give
four and six.--ED.]

[41] Probably alluding to having defended Clarendon in public company;
for nothing of the kind occurs in Dryden's publications. [It is not
impossible that the New Year's Day Poem (1662) to the Lord Chancellor is
partly referred to here.--ED.]

[42] Probably the translation of "_Religio Laici_."

[43] [Some important evidence has come to light since Scott wrote, which
shows that the response to Dryden's petitions and the reward of his
services was not so insignificant as appears from the text, though it
was meagre enough. The facts were not known fully even to Macaulay, and
his ignorance enabled him, in perfect honesty, to make the case against
Dryden, for supposed venal apostasy, stronger than it might otherwise
appear. The documents referred to were discovered by Mr. Peter
Cunningham and by Mr. Charles Beville Dryden, the latter of whom
communicated his discovery to Mr. Robert Bell. As the facts are
undoubted, and Macaulay's ignorance of them equally so, it seems a
little remarkable that a reviewer of the little book on Dryden to which
I am too often obliged to refer my readers, should have announced his
adherence to "Macaulay and fact" rather than "Mr. Bell and sophistry."
It is not obvious how fact can be on the side of a writer who was, owing
to no fault of his own, ignorant of the fact, and whose ignorance
furnished him with his premises. The state of the case is this. Dryden's
application to Hyde produced the following Treasury warrant:--


  --of the sume of Fifty pounds for one
  quarter of the said Annuity or Pencon due at Mid-summer
  1680. And by Vertue of his Ma'ts Lres of Privy
  Scale directing an additionall Annuity of One hundred
  pounds to him the said John Dryden to draw one or
  more orders for payment of the sume of Twenty five
  Pounds for one Quarter of the said Annuity due at
  Lady day 1680. And let both the said sumes making
  the sume of Seaventy Five Pounds be satisfyed out of
  any his Ma'ts Treasure now or hereafter being and
  remaining in the Receipt of Excheq'r not appropriated
  to particular uses For w'ch this shal be your Warrant.

  Whitehall Treasury Chambers May the 6th 1684

  To our very Loving friend S'r Robert                       Rochester
  howard Kn't Auditor of the Receipt                         J Ernle'r
  of his Ma'ts Excheq'r.                                     Ed Dering
  Int'r. in officio Auditor                                  Ste: ffox
  Recpt see-ij Dni Regis                  Int'r in Oficio Clei Pell &c.
  Mr. Dryden 75_l_.


It will be seen from this that independently of the appointment of the
laureateship, Dryden had in or before the year 1679 received an
additional pension of ВЈ100 a year. Confirmatory of this is a Treasury
order for the quarter of the same pension, due January 5th, 1679, and a
secret service payment of the same year, apparently referring to the
same pension. Moreover, on December 17th, 1683, Dryden was appointed
collector of customs in the port of London. The value of this is
unknown, but the sum of ВЈ5 for collecting the duties on cloth, which is
the only part of the emoluments as to which there is documentary
evidence, must have been a very small part of it. Now these two
appointments, the laureateship and the collectorship, were by
letters-patent, and were, in the usual course, confirmed on the
accession of the new Sovereign, though James characteristically cut out
the butt of sack. But the extra pension, which was merely granted by
letters of privy seal, lapsed, and it was absolutely within the
discretion of the new Sovereign to continue or discontinue it. It was
not formally regranted for a year, and this pension was mistaken by
Macaulay for an original one granted in payment of apostasy. That the
difference is very considerable must strike every one, and I for one
cannot see that the drawing of the obvious inference can be called
sophistry. If the time between the lapsing and the regranting seems
long, it has to be observed, first, that arrears to the date of the
lapse are carefully specified; secondly, that even in the case of the
laureateship patent, four whole months, as has been seen, elapsed
between the instruction for it and the patent itself. The circumstances
are, of course, consistent with the supposition that apostasy was made a
condition of the renewal; but they cannot be said to supply of
themselves any argument in favour of such a supposition.--ED.]




SECTION VI.


_Threnodia Augustalis--Albion and Albanius--Dryden becomes a Catholic--
The Controversy of Dryden with Stillingfleet--The Hind and Panther--Life
of St. Francis Xavier--Consequences of the Revolution to Dryden--Don
Sebastian--King Arthur--Cleomenes--Love Triumphant._

The accession of James II. to the British throne excited new hopes in
all orders of men. On the accession of a new prince, the loyal looked to
rewards, the rebellious to amnesty. The Catholics exulted in beholding
one of their persuasion attain the crown after an interval of two
centuries; the Church of England expected the fruits of her unlimited
devotion to the royal line; even the sectaries might hope indulgence
from a prince whose religion deviated from that established by law as
widely as their own. All, therefore, hastened, in sugared addresses, to
lament the sun which had set, and hail the beams of that which had
arisen. Dryden, among other expectants, chose the more honourable of
these themes; and in the "_Threnodia Augustalis_," at once paid a
tribute to the memory of the deceased monarch, and decently solicited
the attention of his successor. But although he had enjoyed personal
marks of the favour of Charles, they were of a nature too unsubstantial
to demand a deep tone of sorrow. "Little was the muses' hire, and light
their gain;" and "the pension of a prince's praise" is stated to have
been all their encouragement. Dryden, therefore, by no means sorrowed as
if he had no hope; but, having said all that was decently mournful over
the bier of Charles, tuned his lyrics to a sounding close in praise of
James.

About the same time, Dryden resumed, with new courage, the opera of
"Albion and Albanius," which had been nearly finished before the death
of Charles. This was originally designed as a masque, or emblematical
prelude to the play of "King Arthur;" for Dryden, wearied with the
inefficient patronage of Charles, from whom he only "received fair
words," had renounced in despair the task of an epic poem, and had
converted one of his themes, that of the tale of Arthur, into the
subject of a romantic drama. As the epic was to have been adapted to the
honour and praise of Charles and his brother, the opera had originally
the same political tendency. "Albion and Albanius" was a sort of
introductory masque, in which, under a very thin veil of allegory,
first, the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne, and, secondly,
their recent conquest over their Whig opponents, were successively
represented. The death of Charles made little alteration in this piece:
it cost but the addition of an apotheosis; and the opera concluded with
the succession of James to the throne, from which he had been so nearly
excluded. These topics were however temporary; and, probably from the
necessity of producing it while the allusions were fresh and obvious,
"Albion and Albanius" was detached from "King Arthur," which was not in
such a state of forwardness. Great expense was bestowed in bringing
forward this piece, and the scenery seems to have been unusually
perfect; particularly, the representation of a celestial phenomenon,
actually seen by Captain Gunman of the navy, whose evidence is quoted in
the printed copies of the play.[1] The music of "Albion and Albanius"
was arranged by Grabut, a Frenchman, whose name does not stand high as a
composer. Yet Dryden pays him some compliments in the preface of the
piece, which were considered as derogatory to Purcel and the English
school, and gave great offence to a class of persons at least as
irritable as their brethren the poets. This, among other causes, seems
to have injured the success of the piece. But its death-blow was the
news of the Duke of Monmouth's invasion, which reached London on
Saturday, 13th June 1685, while "Albion and Albanius" was performing for
the sixth time: the audience broke up in consternation, and the piece
was never again repeated.[2] This opera was prejudicial to the company,
who were involved by the expense in a considerable debt, and never
recovered half the money laid out. Neither was it of service to our
poet's reputation, who had, on this occasion, to undergo the gibes of
angry musicians, as well as the reproaches of disappointed actors and
hostile poets. One went so far as to suggest, with some humour, that
probably the laureate and Grabut had mistaken their trade; the forming
writing the music, and the latter the verse.

We have now reached a remarkable incident in our author's life, namely,
his conversion to the Catholic faith, which took place shortly after the
accession of James II. to the British throne. The biographer of Dryden
must feel considerable difficulty in discussing the probable causes of
his change. Although this essay be intended to contain the life, not the
apology of the poet, it is the duty of the writer to place such
circumstances in view, as may qualify the strong prepossession at first
excited by a change of faith against the individual who makes it. This
prepossession, powerful in every case, becomes doubly so, if the step be
taken at a time when the religion adopted seems more readily to pave the
way for the temporal prosperity of the proselyte. Even where the grounds
of conviction are ample and undeniable, we have a respect for those who
suffer, rather than renounce a mistaken faith, when it is
discountenanced or persecuted. A brave man will least of all withdraw
himself from his ancient standard when the tide of battle beats against
it. On the other hand, those who at such a period admit conviction to
the better and predominant doctrine, are viewed with hatred by the
members of the deserted creed, and with doubt by their new brethren in
faith. Many who adopted Christianity in the reign of Constantine were
doubtless sincere proselytes, but we do not find that any of them have
been canonised. These feelings must be allowed powerfully to affect the
mind, when we reflect that Dryden, a servant of the court and zealously
attached to the person of James, to whom he looked for the reward of
long and faithful service, did not receive any mark of royal favour
until he professed himself a member of the religion for which that king
was all but an actual martyr. There are other considerations, however,
greatly qualifying the conclusions which might be drawn from these
suspicious circumstances, and tending to show, that Dryden's conversion
was at least in a great measure effected by sincere conviction. The
principal clew to the progress of his religious principles is to be
found in the poet's own lines in "The Hind and the Panther," and may, by
a very simple commentary, be applied to the state of his religious
opinions at different periods of his life:--

  "My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;
  My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
  Followed false lights, and, when their glimpse was gone,
  My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
  Such was I, such by nature still I am;
  Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame!"

The "vain desires" of Dryden's "thoughtless youth" require no
explanation: they obviously mean, that inattention to religious duties
which the amusements of youth too frequently occasion. The "false
lights" which bewildered the poet's manhood, were, I doubt not, the
puritanical tenets, which, coming into the world under the auspices of
his fanatical relations, Sir Gilbert Pickering and Sir John Driden, he
must have at least professed, but probably seriously entertained. It
must be remembered, that the poet was thirty years of age at the
Restoration, so that a considerable space of his full-grown manhood had
passed while the rigid doctrines of the fanatics were still the order of
the day. But the third state of his opinions, those "sparkles which his
pride struck out," after the delusions of puritanism had vanished; in
other words, those sentiments which he imbibed after the Restoration,
and which immediately preceded his adoption of the Catholic faith,
cannot be ascertained without more minute investigation. We may at the
outset be easily permitted to assume, that the adoption of a fixed creed
of religious principles was not the first business of our author, when
that merry period set him free from the rigorous fetters of fanaticism.
Unless he differed more than we can readily believe from the public
feeling at that time, Dryden was satisfied to give to Caesar the things
that were Caesar's, without being in a hurry to fulfil the counterpart
of the precept. Foremost in the race of pleasure, engaged in labours
alien from serious reflection, the favourite of the most lively and
dissolute nobility whom England ever saw, religious thoughts were not,
at this period, likely to intrude frequently upon his mind, or to be
encouraged when they did so. The time, therefore, when Dryden began
seriously to compare the doctrines of the contending sects of
Christianity, was probably several years after the Restoration, when
reiterated disappointment, and satiety of pleasure, prompted his mind to
retire within itself, and think upon hereafter. The "_Religio Laici_"
published in 1682, evinces that, previous to composing that poem, the
author had bestowed serious consideration upon the important subjects of
which it treats: and I have postponed the analysis of it to this place,
in order that the reader may be able to form his own conjecture from
what faith Dryden changed when he became a Catholic.

The "_Religio Laici_" has indeed a political tendency, being written to
defend the Church of England against the sectaries: it is not therefore,
so much from the conclusions of the piece, as from the mode of the
author's deducing these conclusions, that Dryden's real opinions may he
gathered;--as we learn nothing of the bowl's bias from its having
reached its mark, though something may be conjectured by observing the
course which it described in attaining it. From many minute particulars,
I think it almost decisive, that Dryden, when he wrote the "_Religio
Laici_," was sceptical concerning revealed religion. I do not mean, that
his doubts were of that fixed and permanent nature, which have at
different times induced men, of whom better might have been hoped, to
pronounce themselves freethinkers on principle. On the contrary, Dryden
seems to have doubted with such a strong wish to believe, as,
accompanied with circumstances of extrinsic influence, led him finally
into the opposite extreme of credulity. His view of the doctrines of
Christianity, and of its evidence, were such as could not legitimately
found him in the conclusions he draws in favour of the Church of
England; and accordingly, in adopting them, he evidently stretches his
complaisance towards the national religion, while perhaps in his heart
he was even then disposed to think there was no middle course between
natural religion and the Church of Rome. The first creed which he
examines is that of Deism; which he rejects, because the worship of one
sole deity was not known to the philosophers of antiquity, and is
therefore obviously to be ascribed to revelation. Revelation thus
proved, the puzzling doubt occurs, whether the Scripture, as contended
by Calvinists, was to be the sole rule of faith, or whether the rules
and traditions of the Church are to be admitted in explanation of the
holy text. Here Dryden does not hesitate to point out the inconveniences
ensuing from making the sacred page the subject of the dubious and
contradictory commentary of the laity at large: when

  "The common rule was made the common prey,
  And at the mercy of the rabble lay;
  The tender page with horny fists was galled,
  And he was gifted most that loudest bawled;
  The spirit gave the doctoral degree,
  And every member of a company
  Was of his trade and of the Bible free."

This was the rule of the sectaries,--of those whose innovations seemed,
in the eyes of the Tories, to be again bursting in upon monarchy and
episcopacy with the strength of a land-flood. Dryden, therefore, at
once, and heartily, reprobates it. But the opposite extreme of admitting
the authority of the Church as omnipotent in deciding all matters of
faith, he does not give up with the same readiness. The extreme
convenience, nay almost necessity, for such authority, is admitted in
these remarkable lines:

  "Such an omniscient church we _wish_ indeed;
  _'Twere worth both Testaments, cast in the Creed._"

A wish, so forcibly expressed, shows a strong desire on the part of the
poet to be convinced of the existence of what he so ardently desired.
And the argument which Dryden considers as conclusive against the
existence of such an omniscient church, is precisely that which a subtle
Catholic would find little trouble in repelling. If there be such a
church, says Dryden, why does it not point out the corruption of the
canon, and restore it where lost? The answer is obvious, providing that
the infallibility of the church be previously assumed; for where can the
necessity of restoring or explaining Scripture, if God has given, to
Pope and Council, the inspiration necessary to settle all doubts in
matters of faith? Dryden must have perceived where this argument led
him, and he rather compounds with the difficulty than faces it. The
Scripture, he admits, must be the rule on the one hand; but, on the
other, it was to be qualified with the traditions of the earlier ages,
and the exposition of learned men. And he concludes, boldly enough:

  "Shall I speak plain, and, in a nation free,
  Assume an honest layman's liberty?
  I think, according to my little skill,
  To my own mother-church submitting still,
  That many have been saved, and many may,
  Who never heard this question brought in play.
  The unlettered Christian, who believes in gross,
  Plods on to heaven, and ne'er is at a loss;
  For the strait gate would be made straiter yet,
  Were none admitted there but men of wit."

This seems to be a plain admission, that the author was involved in a
question from which he saw no very decided mode of extricating himself;
and that the best way was to think as little as possible upon the
subject. But this was a sorry conclusion for affording firm foundation
in religious faith.

Another doubt appears to have puzzled Dryden so much, as to lead him
finally to the Catholic faith for its solution. This was the future fate
of those who never heard the gospel preached, supposing belief in it
essential to salvation:

  "Because a general law is that alone,
  Which must to all, and every where, be known."

Dryden, it is true, founds upon the mercy of the Deity a hope, that the
benefit of the propitiatory sacrifice of our Mediator may be extended to
those who knew not of its power. But the creed of St. Athanasius stands
in the poet's road; and though he disposes of it with less reverence to
the patriarch than is quite seemly, there is an indecision, if not in
his conclusion, at least in his mode of deducing it, that shows an apt
inclination to cut the knot, and solve the objection of the Deist, by
alleging, that belief in the Christian religion is an essential
requisite to salvation.

If I am right in these remarks, it will follow, that Dryden never could
be a firm or steady believer in the Church of England's doctrines. The
arguments, by which he proved them, carried him too far; and when he
commenced a teacher of faith, or when, as he expresses it, "his pride
struck out new sparkles of its own," at that very time, while in words
he maintained the doctrines of his mother-church, his conviction really
hovered between natural religion and the faith of Rome. It is remarkable
that his friends do not seem to have considered the "_Religio Laici_" as
expressive of his decided sentiments; for Charles Blount, a noted
free-thinker, in consequence of that very work, wrote a deistical
treatise in prose, bearing the same title, and ascribed it with great
testimony of respect to "his much-honoured friend, John Dryden,
Esquire."[3] Mr. Blount, living in close habits with Dryden, must have
known perfectly well how to understand his polemical poem; and, had he
supposed it was written under a deep belief of the truth of the English
creed, can it be thought he would have inscribed to the author a tract
against all revelation?[4] The inference is, therefore, sufficiently
plain, that the dedicator knew that Dryden was sceptical on the subject,
on which he had, out of compliment to Church and State, affected a
conviction; and that his "_Religio Laici_" no more inferred a belief in
the doctrines of Christianity, than the sacrifice of a cock to
Esculapius proved the heathen philosopher's faith in the existence of
that divine leech. Thus far Dryden had certainly proceeded. His
disposition to believe in Christianity was obvious, but he was
bewildered in the maze of doubt in which he was involved; and it was
already plain, that the Church, whose promises to illuminate him were
most confident, was likely to have the honour of this distinguished
proselyte. Dryden did not, therefore, except in outward profession,
abandon the Church of England for that of Rome, but was converted to the
Catholic faith from a state of infidelity, or rather of Pyrrhonism. This
is made more clear by the words of Dryden, from which it appears that,
having once admitted the mysterious doctrines of the Trinity and of
redemption, so incomprehensible to human reason, he felt no right to
make any further appeal to that fallible guide:

  "Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;
  What more could fright my faith than three in one?
  Can I believe Eternal God could lie
  Disguised in mortal mould, and infancy?
  That the great Maker of the world could die?
  And after that trust my imperfect sense,
  Which calls in question his omnipotence?"

From these lines it may be safely inferred, that Dryden's sincere
acquiescence in the more abstruse points of Christianity did not long
precede his adoption of the Roman faith. In some preceding verses it
appears, how eagerly he received the conviction of the Church's
infallibility as affording that guide, the want of whom he had in some
degree lamented in the "_Religio Laici_:"

  "What weight of ancient witness can prevail,
  If private reason hold the public scale?
  But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide
  For erring judgments an unerring guide!
  Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
  A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
  O teach me to believe thee, thus concealed,
  And search no farther than thyself revealed;
  But her alone for my director take,
  Whom thou hast promised never to forsake!"

We find, therefore, that Dryden's conversion was not of that sordid kind
which is the consequence of a strong temporal interest; for he had
expressed intelligibly the imagined _desiderata_ which the Church of
Rome alone pretends to supply, long before that temporal interest had an
existence. Neither have we to reproach him, that, grounded and rooted in
a pure Protestant creed, he was foolish enough to abandon it for the
more corrupted doctrines of Rome. He did not unloose from the secure
haven to moor in the perilous road; but, being tossed on the billows of
uncertainty, he dropped his anchor in the first moorings to which the
winds, waves, and perhaps an artful pilot, chanced to convey his bark.
We may indeed regret, that, having to choose between two religions, he
should have adopted that which our education, reason, and even
prepossessions, combine to point out as foully corrupted from the
primitive simplicity of the Christian Church. But neither the Protestant
Christian, nor the sceptic philosopher, can claim a right to despise the
sophistry which bewildered the judgment of Chillingworth, or the toils
which enveloped the active and suspicious minds of Bayle and of Gibbon.
The latter, in his account of his own conversion to the Catholic faith,
fixes upon the very arguments pleaded by Dryden, as those which appeared
to him irresistible. The early traditions of the Church, the express
words of the text, are referred to by both as the grounds of their
conversion; and the works of Bossuet, so frequently referred to by the
poet, were the means of influencing the determination of the
philosopher.[5] The victorious argument to which Chillingworth himself
yielded, was, "that there must be somewhere an infallible judge, and the
Church of Rome is the only Christian society, which either does or can
pretend to that character."

It is also to be observed, that towards the end of Charles II.'s reign,
the High Churchmen and the Catholics regarded themselves as on the same
side in political questions, and not greatly divided in their temporal
interests. Both were sufferers in the Plot, both were enemies of the
sectaries, both were adherents of the Stuarts.

Alternate conversion had been common between them, so early as since
Milton made a reproach to the English universities of the converts to
the Roman faith daily made within their colleges; of those sheep,

     "Whom the grim wolf with privy paw
  Daily devours apace and nothing said."

In approaching Dryden, therefore, a Catholic priest had to combat few of
those personal prejudices which, in other cases, have been impediments
to their making converts. The poet had, besides, before him the example
of many persons both of rank and talent, who had adopted the Catholic
religion.

Such being the disposition of Dryden's mind, and such the peculiar
facilities of the Roman Churchmen in making proselytes, it is by no
means to be denied, that circumstances in the poet's family and
situation strongly forwarded his taking such a step. His Wife, Lady
Elizabeth, had for some time been a Catholic; and though she may be
acquitted of any share in influencing his determination, yet her new
faith necessarily brought into his family persons both able and disposed
to do so. His eldest and best beloved son, Charles, is also said, though
upon uncertain authority, to have been a Catholic before his father, and
to have contributed to his change.[6] Above all, James his master, to
whose fortunes he had so closely attached himself, had now become as
parsimonious of his favour as his Church is of salvation, and restricted
it to those of his own sect. It is more than probable, though only a
conjecture, that Dryden might be made the subject of those private
exhortations, which in that reign were called _closeting_; and,
predisposed as he was, he could hardly be supposed capable of resisting
the royal eloquence. For, while pointing out circumstances of proof,
that Dryden's conversion was not made by manner of bargain and sale, but
proceeded upon a sincere though erroneous conviction, it cannot be
denied, that his situation as poet-laureate, and his expectations from
the king, must have conduced to his taking his final resolution. All I
mean to infer from the above statement is, that his interest and
internal conviction led him to the same conclusion.

If we are to judge of Dryden's sincerity in his new faith, by the
determined firmness with which report retained it through good report
and bad report we must allow him to have been a martyr, or at least a
confessor, in the Catholic cause. If after the Revolution, like many
greater men, he had changed his principles with the times, he was not a
person of such mark as to be selected from all the nation, and punished
for former tenets. Supported by the friendship of Rochester, and most of
the Tory nobles who were active in the Revolution, of Leicester, and
many Whigs, and especially of the Lord-Chamberlain Dorset, there would
probably have been little difficulty in his remaining poet-laureate, if
he had recanted the errors of Popery. But the Catholic religion, and the
consequent disqualifications, was an insurmountable obstacle to his
holding that or any other office under government; and Dryden's
adherence to it, with all the poverty, reproach, and even persecution
which followed the profession, argued a deep and substantial conviction
of the truth of the doctrines it inculcated. So late as 1699, when an
union, in opposition to King William, had led the Tories and Whigs to
look on each other with some kindness, Dryden thus expresses himself in
a letter to his cousin, Mrs. Steward: "The court rather speaks kindly of
me, than does anything for me, though they promise largely; and perhaps
they think I will advance as they go backward, in which they will be
much deceived: for I can never go an inch beyond my conscience and my
honour. If they will consider me as a man who has done my best to
improve the language, and especially the poetry, and will be content
with my acquiescence under the present government, and forbearing satire
on it, that I can promise, because I can perform it: but I can neither
take the oaths, nor forsake my religion; because I know not what Church
to go to, if I leave the Catholic: they are all so divided amongst
themselves in matters of faith, necessary to salvation, and yet all
assuming the name of Protestants. May God be pleased to open your eyes,
as he has opened mine! Truth is but one, and they who have once heard of
it, can plead no excuse if they do not embrace it. But these are things
too serious for a trifling letter."[7] If, therefore, adherence to the
communion of a falling sect, loaded too at the time with heavy
disqualifications, and liable to yet more dangerous suspicions, can be
allowed as a proof of sincerity, we can hardly question that Dryden was,
from the date of his conviction, a serious and sincere Roman Catholic.

The conversion of Dryden did not long remain unrewarded,[8] nor was his
pen suffered to be idle in the cause which he had adopted. On the 4th of
March 1685-6, an hundred pounds a year, payable quarterly, was added to
his pension:[9] and probably he found himself more at ease under the
regular and economical government of James, than when his support
depended on the exhausted exchequer of Charles. Soon after the granting
of this boon, he was employed to defend the reasons of conversion to the
Catholic faith, alleged by Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, which, together
with two papers on a similar subject, said to be found in Charles II.'s
strong box. James had with great rashness given to the public.
Stillingfleet, now at the head of the champions of the Protestant faith,
published some sharp remarks on these papers. Another hand, probably
that of a Jesuit, was employed to vindicate against him the royal
grounds of conversion; while to Dryden was committed the charge of
defending those alleged by the Duchess. The tone of Dryden's apology
was, to say the least, highly injudicious, and adapted to irritate the
feelings of the clergy of the established church, already sufficiently
exasperated to see the sacrifices which they had made to the royal cause
utterly forgotten, the moment that they paused in the extremity of their
devotion towards the monarch. The name of "Legion," which the apologist
bestows on his adversaries, intimates the committee of the clergy by
whom the Protestant cause was then defended; and the tone of his
arguments is harsh, contemptuous, and insulting. A raker up of the ashes
of princes, an hypocrite, a juggler, a latitudinarian, are the best
terms which he affords the advocate of the Church of England, in defence
of which he had so lately been himself a distinguished champion.
Stillingfleet returned to the charge; and when he came to the part of
the Defence written by Dryden, he did not spare the personal invective,
to which the acrimonious style of the poet-laureate had indeed given an
opening, "Zeal," says Stillingfleet, "in a new convert, is a terrible
thing, for it not only burns, but rages like the eruptions of Mount
Etna; it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a
torrent of living fire, that there is no standing before it." In another
passage, Stillingfleet talks of the "temptation of changing religion for
bread;" in another, our author's words, that

  "Priests of all religions are the same," [10]

are quoted to infer, that he who has no religion may declare for any.
Dryden took his revenge both on Stillingfleet the author, and on Burnet,
whom he seems to have regarded as the reviser of this answer, in his
polemical poem of "The Hind and the Panther."

If we can believe an ancient tradition, this poem was chiefly composed
in a country retirement at Rushton, near his birth-place in Huntingdon
[Northamptonshire]. There was an embowered walk at this place, which,
from the pleasure which the poet took in it, retained the name of
Dryden's Walk; and here was erected, about the middle of last century,
an urn, with the following inscription: "In memory of Dryden, who
frequented these shades, and is here said to have composed his poem of
'The Hind and the Panther.'"[11]

"The Hind and the Panther" was written with a view to obviate the
objections of the English clergy and people to the power of dispensing
with the test laws, usurped by James II. A change of political measures,
which took place while the poem was composing, has greatly injured its
unity and consistence. In the earlier part of his reign, James
endeavoured to gain the Church of England, by fair means and flattery,
to submit to the remission which he claimed the liberty of granting to
the Catholics. The first part of Dryden's poem is written upon this
soothing plan; the Panther, or Church of England, is

          "sure the noblest next the Hind,
  And fairest offspring of the spotted kind.
  Oh could her inborn stains be washed away,
  She were too good to be a beast of prey."

The sects, on the other hand, are characterised, wolves, bears, boars,
foxes,--all that is odious and horrible in the brute creation. But ere
the poem was published, the king had assumed a different tone with the
established church. Relying upon the popularity which the suspension of
the penal laws was calculated to procure among the Dissenters, he
endeavoured to strengthen his party by making common cause between them
and the Catholics, and bidding open defiance to the Church of England.
For a short time, and with the most ignorant of the sectaries, this plan
seemed to succeed; the pleasure of a triumph over their ancient enemies
rendering them blind to the danger of the common Protestant cause.
During this interval the poem was concluded; and the last book seems to
consider the cause of the Hind and Panther as gone to a final issue, and
incapable of any amicable adjustment. The Panther is fairly resigned to
her fate:

  "Her hour of grace was passed,"

and the downfall of the English hierarchy is foretold in that of the
Doves, who, in a subaltern allegory, represent the clergy of the
established church:

  "Tis said, the Doves repented, though too late,
  Become the smiths of their own foolish fate:
  Nor did their owner hasten their ill hour,
  But, sunk in credit, they decreased in power;
  Like snows in warmth that mildly pass away,
  Dissolving in the silence of decay."

In the preface, as well as in the course of the poem, Dryden frequently
alludes to his dispute with Stillingfleet; and perhaps none of his poems
contain finer lines than those in which he takes credit for the painful
exertion of Christian forbearance when called by injured feeling to
resent personal accusation:--

  "If joys hereafter must be purchased here
  With loss of all that mortals hold so dear,
  Then welcome infamy and public shame,
  And last, a long farewell to worldly fame!
  'Tis said with ease; but, oh, how hardly tried
  By haughty souls to human honour tied!
  O sharp convulsive pangs of agonising pride!
  Down then, rebel, never more to rise!
  And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize,
  That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice.
  'Tis nothing thou hast given; then add thy tears
  For a long race of unrepenting years:
  'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give;
  Then add those may-be years thou hast to live:
  Yet nothing still: then poor and naked come,
  Thy father will receive his unthrift home,
  And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty sum."

Stillingfleet is, however, left personally undistinguished, but Burnet,
afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, receives chastisement in his stead. The
character of this prelate, however unjustly exaggerated, preserves many
striking and curious traits of resemblance to the original; and, as was
natural, gave deep offence to the party for whom it was drawn. For not
only did Burnet at the time express himself with great asperity of
Dryden, but long afterwards, when writing his history, he pronounced a
severe censure on the immorality of his plays, so inaccurately expressed
as to be applicable, by common construction to the author's private
character. From this coarse and inexplicit accusation, the memory of
Dryden was indignantly vindicated by his friend Lord Lansdowne.

It is also worth remarking, that in the allegory of the swallows,
introduced in the Third Part of "The Hind and the Panther," the author
seems to have had in his eye the proposal made at a grand consult of the
Catholics, that they should retire from the general and increasing
hatred of all ranks, and either remain quiet at home, or settle abroad.
This plan, which originated in their despair of James's being able to do
anything effectual in their favour, was set aside by the fiery
opposition of Father Petre, the martin of the fable told by the Panther
to the Hind.[12]

The appearance of "The Hind and the Panther" excited a clamour against
the author far more general than the publication of "Absalom and
Achitophel." Upon that occasion the offence was given only to a party,
but this open and avowed defence of James's strides towards arbitrary
power, with the unpopular circumstance of its coming from a new convert
to the royal faith, involved our poet in the general suspicion with
which the nation at large now viewed the slightest motions of their
infatuated monarch. The most noted amongst those who appeared to oppose
the triumphant advocate of the Hind, were Montague and Prior, young men
now rising into eminence. They joined to produce a parody entitled the
"Town and Country Mouse;" part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify
his old friends, Smith and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is,
therefore, founded upon the twice-told jest of the "Rehearsal." Of the
parody itself, we have given ample specimen in its proper place. There
is nothing new or original in the idea, which chiefly turns upon the
ridiculing the poem of Dryden, where religious controversy is made the
subject of dispute and adjustment between a Hind and a Panther, who vary
between their typical character of animals and their real character as
the Catholic and English Church. In this piece, Prior, though the
younger man, seems to have had by far the larger share. Lord
Peterborough, on being asked whether the satire was not written by
Montague in conjunction with Prior, answered, "Yes; as if I, seated in
Mr. Cheselden's chaise drawn by his fine horse, should say, _Lord!_ how
finely we draw this chaise!" Indeed, although the parody was trite and
obvious, the satirists had the public upon their side; and it now seems
astonishing with what acclamations this attack upon the most able
champion of James's faith was hailed by his discontented subjects.
Dryden was considered as totally overcome by his assailants; they deemed
themselves, and were deemed by others, as worthy of very distinguished
and weighty recompence;[13] and what was yet a more decisive mark, that
their bolt had attained its mark, the aged poet is said to have
lamented, even with tears, the usage he had received from two young men,
to whom he had been always civil. This last circumstance is probably
exaggerated. Montague and Prior had doubtless been frequenters of Will's
coffee-house, where Dryden held the supreme rule in criticism, and had
thus, among other rising wits, been distinguished by him. That he should
have felt their satire is natural, for the arrow flew with the wind, and
popularity amply supplied its deficiency in real vigour; but the reader
may probably conclude with Johnson, that Dryden was too much hackneyed
in political warfare to suffer so deeply from the parody, as Dr.
Lockier's anecdote would lead us to believe. "If we can suppose him
vexed," says that accurate judge of human nature, "we can hardly deny
him sense to conceal his uneasiness."