THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.

An unexpected burst of woes.—P. [62.]

Charles II. enjoyed excellent health, and was particularly careful to preserve it by constant exercise. His danger, therefore, fell like a thunder-bolt on his people, whose hearts were gained by his easy manners and good humour, and who considered, that the worst apprehensions they had ever entertained during his reign, arose from the religion and disposition of his successor. The mingled passions of affection and fear produced a wonderful sensation on the nation. The people were so passionately concerned, that North says, and appeals to all who recollected the time for the truth of his averment, that it was rare to see a person walking the street with dry eyes. Examen. p. 647.

The second causes took the swift command,

The medicinal head, the ready hand,

All eager to perform their part.—P. [64.]

If there is safety in the multitude of counsellors, Charles did not find it in the multitude of physicians. Nine were in attendance, all men of eminence; the presence of the least of whom, Le Sage would have said, was fully adequate to account for the subsequent catastrophe. They were Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Thomas Witherby, Sir Charles Scarborough, Sir Edmund King, Doctors Berwick, Charlton, Lower, Short, and Le Fevre. They signed a declaration, that the king had died of an apoplexy.

The joyful short-lived news soon spread around.—P. 65.

An article was published in the Gazette, on the third day of the king's illness, importing, "That his physicians now conceived him to be in a state of safety, and that in a few days he would be freed from his indisposition."[61] North tells us, however, on the authority of his brother, the Lord Keeper, that the only hope which the physicians afforded to the council, was an assurance, (joyfully communicated,) that the king was ill of a violent fever. The council seeing little consolation in these tidings, one of the medical gentlemen explained, by saying, that they now knew what they had to do, which was to administer the cortex. This was done while life lasted,[62] although some of the physicians seem to have deemed the prescription improper; in which case, Charles, after escaping the poniards and pistols of the Jesuits, may be said to have fallen a victim to their bark.

And he who most performed, and promised less,

Even Short himself, forsook the unequal strife.—P. [67].

Dr Thomas Short, an eminent physician, who came into the court practice when Dr Richard Lower, who formerly enjoyed it, embraced the political principles of the Whig party. Short, a Roman Catholic, and himself a Tory, was particularly acceptable to the Tories. To this circumstance he probably owes the compliment paid him by our author, and another from Lord Mulgrave to the same purpose. Otway reckons, among his selected friends,

Short, beyond what numbers can commend.[63]

Duke has also inscribed to him his translation of the eleventh Idyllium of Theocritus; beginning,

O Short! no herb nor salve was ever found,

To ease a lover's heat, or heal his wound.

Dr Short, as one of the king's physicians, attended the death-bed of Charles, and subscribed the attestation, that he died of an apoplexy. Yet there has been ascribed to him an expression of dubious import, which caused much disquisition at the time; namely, that "the king had not fair play for his life." Burnet says plainly, that "Short suspected poison, and talked more freely of it than any Protestant durst venture to do at the time." He, adds, that "Short himself was taken suddenly ill, upon taking a large draught of wormwood wine, in the house of a Popish patient near the Tower; and while on his death-bed, he told Lower, and Millington, and other physicians, that he believed he himself was poisoned, for having spoken too freely of the king's death."[64] Mulgrave states the same report in these words, which, coming from a professed Tory, are entitled to the greater credit: "I am obliged to observe, that the most knowing and most deserving of all his physicians did not only believe him poisoned, but thought himself so too, not long after, for having declared his opinion a little too boldly."[65] North, in confutation of this report, has interpreted Short's expression, as meaning nothing more than that the king's malady was mistaken by his physicians, who, by their improper prescriptions, deprived nature of fair play;[66] and he appeals to all the eminent physicians who attended Dr Short in his last illness, whether he did not fall a victim to his own bold method, in using the cortex. Upon the whole, whatever opinion this individual physician may have adopted through mistake, or affectation of singularity, and whatever credit faction, or indeed popular prejudice in general, may have given to such rumours at the time, there appears no solid reason to believe that Charles died of poison. Both Burnet and Mulgrave say, that they never heard a hint that his brother was accessary to such a crime; and it is very unlikely that any zealous Catholic should have had either opportunity, or inclination, to hasten the reign of a prince of that religion, by the unsolicited service of poisoning his brother. The other physicians, several of whom, Lower, for example, were Whigs, as well as Protestants, gave no countenance to this rumour, which was circulated by a Catholic. And, as the symptoms of the king's disorder are decidedly apoplectic, the report may be added to those with which history abounds, and which are raised and believed only because an extraordinary end is thought most fit for the eminent and powerful.

Short, as we have incidentally noticed, survived his royal patient but a few months. He was succeeded in his practice by Ratcliffe, the famous Tory physician of Queen Anne's reign.

All that on earth he held most dear,

He recommended to his care,

To whom both heaven

The right had given,

And his own love bequeathed supreme command.—P. [69].

The historical accounts of the dying requests of Charles are contradictory and obscure. It seems certain, that he earnestly recommended his favourite mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth, to the protection of his successor. He had always, he said, loved her, and he now loved her at the last. The Bishop of Bath presented to him his natural son, the Duke of Richmond; whom he blessed, and recommended, with his other children, to his successor's protection; adding, "Do not let poor Nelly [67] starve." He seems to have said nothing of the Duke of Monmouth, once so much beloved, and whom, shortly before, he entertained thoughts of recalling from banishment, and replacing in favour; perhaps he thought, any recommendation to James of a rival so hated would be ineffectual. Burnet says, he spoke not a word of the queen. Echard, on the contrary, affirms, that, at the exhortation of the Bishop of Bath, Charles sent for the queen, and asked and received her pardon for the injuries he had done her bed.[68] In Fountainhall's Manuscript, the queen is said to have sent a message, requesting his pardon if she had ever offended him: "Alas, poor lady!" replied the dying monarch, "she never offended me; I have too often injured her."[69] This account seems more probable than that of Echard; for so public a circumstance, as a personal visit from the queen to her husband's death-bed, could hardly have been disputed by contemporaries.

The officious muses came along,

A gay harmonious quire, like angels ever young;

The muse, that mourns him now, his happy triumph sung.—P. [74].

In Dryden's Life, we had occasion to remark the effect of the Restoration upon literature. It was not certainly its least important benefit, that it opened our poet's own way to distinction; which is thus celebrated by Baber:

——till blest years brought Cæsar home again,

Dryden to purpose never drew his pen.

He, happy favourite of the tuneful nine!

Came with an early offering to your shrine;

Embalmed in deathless verse the monarch's fame;

Verse, which shall keep it fresh in youthful prime,

When Rustal's sacred gift must yield to time.

Faith is a Christian's and a subject's test.—P. [78].

James, as well as his poet, was not slack in intimating to his subjects, that he expected them to possess a proper portion of this saving virtue. And, that they might not want an opportunity of exercising it, he was pleased, by his own royal proclamation, to continue the payment of the duties of the custom-house, which had been granted by parliament only during his brother's life.

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER,
A POEM.

IN THREE PARTS.

——Antiquam exquirite matrem——

——Et vera incessu patuit Dea. Virg.

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER.

In the Life of Dryden, there is an attempt to trace the progress and changes of those religious opinions, by which he was unfortunately conducted into the errors of Popery. With all the zeal of a now convert, he seems to have been impatient to invite others to follow his example, by detailing, in poetry, the arguments which had appeared to him unanswerable. "The Hind and the Panther" is the offspring of that rage for proselytism, which is a peculiar attribute of his new mother church. The author is anxious, in the preface, to represent this poem as a task which he had voluntarily undertaken, without receiving even the subject from any one. His assertion seems worthy of full credit; for, although it was the most earnest desire of James II. to employ every possible mode for the conversion of his subjects, there is room to believe, that, if the poem had been written under his direction, the tone adopted by Dryden towards the sectaries would have been much more mild. It is a well-known point of history, that, in order to procure as many friends as possible to the repeal of the test act and penal laws against the Catholics, James extended indulgence to the puritans and sectarian non-conformists, the ancient enemies of his person, his family, and monarchical establishments in general. Dryden obviously was not in this court secret; the purpose of which was to unite those congregations, whom he has described under the parable of bloody bears, boars, wolves, foxes, &c. in a common interest with the Hind, against the exclusive privileges of the Panther and her subjects. His work was written with the precisely opposite intention of recommending an union between the Catholics and the church of England; at least, of persuading the latter to throw down the barriers, by which the former were kept out of state employments. Such an union had at one time been deemed practicable; and, in 1685, pamphlets had been published, seriously exhorting the church of England to a league with the Catholics, in order to root out the sectaries as common enemies to both. The steady adherence of the church of England to Protestant principles, rendered all hopes of such an union abortive; and, while Dryden was composing his poem upon this deserted plan, James was taking different steps to accomplish the main purpose both of the poet and monarch.

The power of the crown to dispense, at pleasure, with the established laws of the kingdom, had been often asserted, and sometimes exercised, by former English monarchs. A king was entitled, the favourers of prerogative argued, to pardon the breach of a statute, when committed; why not, therefore, to suspend its effect by a dispensation a priori, or by a general suspension of the law? which was only doing in general, what he was confessedly empowered to do in particular cases. But a doctrine so pernicious to liberty was never allowed to take root in the constitution; and the confounding the prerogative of extending mercy to individual criminals, with that of annulling the laws under which they had been condemned, was a fallacy easily detected and refuted. Charles II. twice attempted to assert his supposed privilege of suspending the penal laws, by granting a general toleration; and he had, in both cases, been obliged to retract, by the remonstrances of Parliament.[70] But his successor, who conceived that his power was situated on a more firm basis, and who was naturally obstinate in his resolutions, was not swayed by this recollection. He took every opportunity to exercise the power of dispensing with the laws, requiring Catholics to take the test agreeable to act of Parliament. He asserted his right to do so in his speech to the Parliament, on 9th November, 1685; he despised the remonstrances of both Houses, upon so flagrant and open a violation of the law; and he endeavoured, by a packed bench, and a feigned action at law, to extort a judicial ratification of his dispensing power. At length, not contented with granting dispensations to individuals, the king resolved at once to suspend the operation of all penal statutes, which required conformity with the church of England, as well as of the test act.

On the 4th of April, 1687, came forth the memorable Declaration of Indulgence, in favour of all non-conformists of whatever persuasion; by which they were not only protected in the full exercise of their various forms of religion, but might, without conformity, be admitted to all offices in the state. With what consequences this act of absolute power was attended, the history of the Revolution makes us fully acquainted; for it is surely unnecessary to add, that the indulgence occasioned the petition and trial of the bishops, the most important incident in that momentous period.

About a fortnight after the publishing of this declaration of indulgence, our author's poem made its appearance; being licensed on the 11th April, 1687, and published a few days after. If it was undertaken without the knowledge of the court, it was calculated, on its appearance, to secure the royal countenance and approbation. Accordingly, as soon as it was published in England, a second edition was thrown off at a printing office in Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, then maintained for the express purpose of disseminating such treatises as were best calculated to serve the Catholic cause.[71] If the Protestant dissenters ever cast their eyes upon profane poetry, "The Hind and the Panther" must have appeared to them a perilous commentary on the king's declaration; since it shows clearly, that the Catholic interest alone was what the Catholic king and poet had at heart, and that, however the former might now find himself obliged to court their favour, to strengthen his party against the established church, the deep remembrance of ancient feuds and injuries was still cherished, and the desire of vengeance on the fanatics neither sated nor subdued.

In composing this poem, it may be naturally presumed, that Dryden exerted his full powers. He was to justify, in the eyes of the world, a step which is always suspicious; and, by placing before the public the arguments by which he had been induced to change his religion, he was at once to exculpate himself, and induce others to follow his example. He chose, for the mode of conveying this instruction, that parabolical form of writing, which took its rise perhaps in the East, or rather which, in a greater or less degree, is common to all nations. An old author observes, that there is "no species of four-footed beasts, of birds, of fish, of insects, reptiles, or any other living things, whose nature is not found in man. How exactly agreeable to the fox are some men's tempers; whilst others are profest bears in human shape. Here you shall meet a crocodile, who seeks, with feigned tears, to entrap you to your ruin; there a serpent creeps, and winds himself into your affections, till, on a sudden, when warmed with favours, he will bite and sting you to death. Tygers, lions, leopards, panthers, wolves, and all the monstrous generations of Africa, may be seen masquerading in the forms of men; and 'tis not hard for an observing mind to see their natural complexions through the borrowed vizard."[72] Dryden conceived the idea, of extending to religious communities the supposed resemblance between man and the lower animals. Under the name of a "milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged," he described the unity, simplicity, and innocence of the church, to which he had become a convert; and under that of a Panther, fierce and inexorable towards those of a different persuasion, he bodied forth the church of England, obstinate in defending its pale from encroachment, by the penal statutes and the test act.[73] There wanted not critics to tell him, that he had mistaken the character of either communion.[74] The inferior sects are described under the emblem of various animals, fierce and disgusting in proportion to their more remote affinity to the church of Rome. And in a dialogue between the two principal characters, the leading arguments of the controversy between the churches, at least what the poet chose to consider as such, are formally discussed.

But Dryden's plan is far from coming within the limits of a fable or parable, strictly so called; for it is strongly objected, that the poet has been unable to avoid confounding the real churches themselves with the Hind and the Panther, under which they are represented. "The hind," as Johnson observes, "at one time is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the Catholic church." And the same critic complains, "that the king is now Cæsar, and now the lion, and that the name Pan is given to the Supreme Being." "The Hind and Panther transversed, or the City and Country Mouse," which was written in ridicule of this poem, turns chiefly upon the incongruity of the emblems adopted by Dryden, and the inconsistencies into which his plan had led him.[75] This ridicule, and the criticism on which it is founded, seems, however, to be carried a little too far. If a fable, or parable, is to be entirely and exclusively limited to a detail which may suit the common actions and properties of the animals, or things introduced in it, we strike out from the class some which have always been held the most beautiful examples of that style of fiction. It is surely as easy to conceive a Hind and Panther discussing points of religion, as that the trees of the forest should assemble together to chuse a king, invite different trees to accept of that dignity, and, finally, make choice of a bramble. Yet no one ever hesitates to pronounce Jotham's Parable of the Trees one of the finest which ever was written. Or what shall we say of one of the most common among Æsop's apologues, which informs us in the outset, that the lion, the ox, the sheep, and the ass, went a hunting together, on condition of dividing equally whatever should be caught? Yet this and many other fables, in which the animals introduced act altogether contrary to their nature, are permitted to rank without censure in the class which they assume. Nay, it may be questioned whether the most proper fables are not those in which the animals are introduced as acting upon the principles of mankind. For instance, if an author be compared to a daw, it is no fable, but a simile; but if a tale be told of a daw who dressed himself in borrowed feathers, a thing naturally impossible, the simile becomes a proper fable. Perhaps, therefore, it is sufficient for the fabulist, if he can point out certain original and leading features of resemblance betwixt his emblems, and that which they are intended to represent, and he may be permitted to take considerable latitude in their farther approximation. It may be farther urged in Dryden's behalf, that the older poets whom he professed to imitate, Spenser, for example, in "Mother Hubbart's Tale," which he has actually quoted, and Chaucer, in that of the "Nun's Priest's tale" have stepped beyond the simplicity of the ancient fable, and introduced a species of mixed composition, between that and downright satire. The names and characters of beasts are only assumed in "Mother Hubbart's Tale," that the satirist might, under that slight cloak, say with safety what he durst not otherwise have ventured upon; and in the tale of Chaucer, the learned dialogue about dreams is only put into the mouths of a cock and hen, to render the ridicule of such disquisitions more poignant. Had Spenser been asked, why he described the court of the lion as exactly similar to that of a human prince, and introduced the fox as composing madrigals for the courtiers? he would have bidden the querist,

——Yield his sense was all too blunt and base,

That n'ote without a hound fine footing trace.

And if the question had been put to the bard of Woodstock, why, he made his cock an astrologer, and his hen a physician, he would have answered, that his satire might become more ludicrous, by putting these grave speeches into the mouths of such animals. Dryden seems to have proposed as his model this looser kind of parable; giving his personages, indeed, the names of the Hind and Panther, but reserving to himself the privilege of making the supposed animals use the language and arguments of the communities they were intended to represent. I must own, however, that this licence appears less pardonable in the First Part, where he professes to use the majestic turn of heroic poetry, than in those which are dedicated to argument and satire.

Dryden has, in this very poem, given us two examples of the more pure and correct species of fable. These, which he terms in the preface Episodes, are the tale of the Swallows seduced to defer their emigration, and that of the Pigeons, who chose a Buzzard for their king.[78] It is remarkable, that, as the former is by much the most complete story, so, although put in the mouth of a representative of the heretical church, it proved eventually to contain a truth sorrowful to our author, and those of the Roman Catholic persuasion: For, while the Buzzard's elevation (Bishop Burnet by name) was not attended with any peculiar evil consequences to the church of England, the short gleam of Popish prosperity was soon overcast, and the priests and their proselytes plunged in reality into all the distress of the swallows in the Panther's fable.

In conformity to our author's plan, announced in the preface, the fable is divided into Three Parts. The First is dedicated to the general description and character of the religious sects, particularly the churches of Rome and of England. And here Dryden has used the more elevated strain of heroic poetry. In the Second, the general arguments of the controversy between the two churches are agitated, for which purpose a less magnificent style of language is adopted. In the Third and last Part, from discussing the disputed points of theology, the Hind and Panther descend to consider the particulars in which their temporal interests were judged at this period to interfere with each other. And here Dryden has lowered the tone of his verse to that of common conversation. We must admit, with Johnson, that these distinctions of style are not always accurately adhered to. The First Part has familiar lines; as, for instance, the four with which it concludes:

Considering her a civil well-bred beast,

And more a gentlewoman than the rest,

After some common talk, what rumours ran,

The lady of the spotted muff began.

Some passages are not only mean in expression, but border on profaneness; as,

The smith divine, as with a careless beat,

Struck out the mute creation at a heat;

But when at last arrived to human race,

The Godhead took a deep considering space.

On the other hand, the Third Part has passages in a higher tone of poetry; particularly the whole character of James in the fable of the Pigeons and the Buzzard: but it is enough to fulfil the author's promise in the preface, that the parts do each in general preserve a peculiar character and style, though occasionally sliding into that of the others.

It is a main defect of the plan just detailed, that it necessarily limited the interest of the poem to that crisis of politics when it was published. A work, which the author announces as calculated to attract the favour of friends, and to animate the malevolence of enemies, is now read with cold indifference. He launched forth into a tide of controversy, which, however furious at the time, has long subsided, leaving his poem a disregarded wreck, stranded upon the shores which the surges once occupied.

Setting aside this original defect, the First and Last Parts of the poem, in particular, abound with passages of excellent poetry. In the former, it is worthy attention, with what ease and command of his language and subject Dryden passes from his sublime description of the immortal Hind, to brand and stigmatise the sectaries by whom she was hated and persecuted; a rare union of dignity preserved in satire, and of satire engrafted upon heroic poetry. The reader cannot, at the same time, fail to observe the felicity with which the poet has assigned prototypes to the dissenting churches, agreeing in character with that which he meant to fix upon their several congregations. The Bear, unlicked to forms, is the emblem of the Independents, who disclaimed them;[79] the Wolf, which hunts in herds, to the classes and synods of the Presbyterian church; the Hare, to the peaceful Quakers; the wild Boar, to the fierce and savage Anabaptists, who ravaged Germany, the native country of that animal. With similar felicity, the "bird, who warned St Peter of his fall," is, from that circumstance, and his nocturnal vigils, afterwards assigned as the representative of the Catholic clergy. Above all, the attention is arrested by the pointed description of those dark and sullen enthusiasts, who, scarcely agreeing among themselves upon any peculiar points of doctrine, rested their claim to superior sanctity upon abominating and contemning those usual forms of reverence, by which men, in all countries since the beginning of the world, have agreed to distinguish public worship from ordinary or temporal employments. The whole of this First Part of the poem abounds with excellent poetry, rising above the tone of ordinary satire, and yet possessing all its poignancy. The difference, to those against whom it is directed, is like that of being blasted by a thunder-bolt, instead of being branded with a red-hot iron.

The First Part of "The Hind and Panther," although chiefly dedicated to general characters, contains some reasoning on the grand controversy, similar to that which occupies the Second. The author displays, with the utmost art and energy of argumentative poetry, the reasons by which he was himself guided in adopting the Roman Catholic faith. He is led into this discussion, by mentioning the heretical doctrine of the Unitarians; and insists, that the Protestant churches, which have consented to postpone human reason to faith, by acquiescing in the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, are not entitled to appeal to the authority which they have waived, for arguments against the mystery of the real presence in the eucharist. This was a favourite mode of reasoning of the Catholics at the time, as may be seen from the numerous treatises which they sent forth upon the controversy. It is undoubtedly very fit to impose on the vulgar, but completely overshoots the mark at which it aims. For, if our yielding humble belief to one abstruse doctrine of divinity be sufficient to debar the exercise of our reason respecting another, it is obvious, that, by the same reason, the appeal to our understanding must be altogether laid aside in matters of doubtful orthodoxy. The Protestant divines, therefore, took a distinction; and, while they admitted they were obliged to surrender their human judgment in matters of divine revelation which were above their reason, they asserted the power of appealing to its guidance in those things of a finite nature which depend on the evidence of sense, and the consequent privileges of rejecting any doctrine, which, being within the sphere of human comprehension, is nevertheless repugnant to the understanding: therefore, while they received the doctrine of the Trinity as an infinite mystery, far above their reason, they contended against that of transubstantiation as capable of being tried by human faculties, and as contradicted by an appeal to them. In a subsequent passage, the author taxes the church of England with an attempt to reconcile contradictions, by admitting the real presence in the eucharist, and yet denying actual transubstantiation. Dryden boldly appeals to the positive words of scripture, and sums his doctrine thus:

The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood,

But nonsense never can be understood.

Granting, however, the obscurity or mystery of the one doctrine, it is a hard choice to be obliged to adopt, in its room, that which asserts an acknowledged impossibility.

In the Second Part, another point of the controversy is agitated; the infallibility, namely, which is claimed by the Roman church. The author appears here to have hampered himself in the toils of his own argument in a former poem. He had asserted in the "Religio Laici," that the Scriptures contained all things necessary for salvation; while he yet admitted, that those, whose bent inclined them to the study of polemical divinity, were to be guided by the expositions of the fathers, and the earlier, especially the written, traditions of the Church. There is, as has been noticed in the remarks on "Religio Laici," a certain vacillation in our author's arguments concerning tradition, while yet a Protestant, which prepares us for his finally reposing his doubts in the bosom of that church, which pretends to be the sole depositary of the earlier doctrines of Christianity, and claims a right to ascertain all doubts in point of faith, by the same mode, and with the same unerring certainty, as the original church in the days of the apostles and fathers. These doubts, with which Dryden seems to have been deeply impressed while within the pale of the Church of England, he now objects to her as inconsistencies, and accuses her of having recourse to tradition, or discarding it, as suited the argument which, for the time, she had in agitation. It is unnecessary here to trace the various grounds on which reformed churches prove, that the chain of apostolical tradition has been broken and shivered; and that the church, claiming the proud title of Infallible, has repeatedly sanctioned heresy and error. Neither is it necessary to shew, how the Church of England stops short in her reception of traditions, adopting only those of the primitive church. Something on these points may be found in the notes. I may remark, that Dryden is of the Gallican or low Church of Rome, if I may so speak, and rests the infallibility which he claims for her in the Pope and Council of the Church, and not in the Vicar of Christ alone. In point of literary interest, this Second Part is certainly beneath the other two. It furnishes, however, an excellent specimen of poetical ratiocination upon a most unpromising subject.

The Third Part refers entirely to the politics of the day; and the poet has endeavoured, by a number of arguments, to remove the deep jealousy and apprehensions which the king's religion, and his zeal for proselytism, had awakened in the Church of England. He does not even spare to allege a recent adoption of presbyterian doctrines, as the reason for her unwonted resistance to the royal will; and all the vigour of his satire is pointed against the latitudinarian clergy, or, as they were finally called, the Low Church Party, who now began to assert, what James at length found a melancholy truth, that the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance was not peremptorily binding, when the church herself was endangered by the measures of the monarch. Stillingfleet, the personal antagonist of our author, in the controversy concerning the Duchess of York's posthumous declaration of faith, is personally and ferociously attacked. The poem concludes with a fable delivered by each of the disputants, of which the moral applies to the project and hopes of her rival. We have already said, that which is told by the Panther, as it is most spirited and pointed, proved, to the great regret of the author, most strictly prophetic. It is remarkable for containing a beautiful character of King James, as the other exhibits a satirical portrait of the historian Burnet, with whom the court party in general, and Dryden personally, was then at enmity.

The verse in which these doctrines, polemical and political, are delivered, is among the finest specimens of the English heroic stanza. The introductory verses, in particular, are lofty and dignified in the highest degree; as are those, in which the splendour and majesty of the Church of Rome are set forth, in all the glowing colours of rich imagery and magnificent language. But the same praise extends to the versification of the whole poem. It never falls, never becomes rugged; rises with the dignified strain of the poetry; sinks into quaint familiarity, where sarcasm and humour are employed; and winds through all the mazes of theological argument, without becoming either obscure or prosaic. The arguments are in general advanced with an air of conviction and candour, which, in those days, must have required the protestant reader to be on his guard in the perusal, and which seems completely to ascertain the sincerity of the author in his new religious creed.

This controversial poem, containing a bold defiance to all who opposed the king's measures or faith, had no sooner appeared, than our author became a more general object of attack than he had been even on the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel." Indeed, his enemies were now far more numerous, including most of his former friends, the Tories of the high church, excepting a very few who remained attached to James, and saw, with anxiety, his destruction precipitated by the measures he was adopting.

Montague and Prior were among the first to assail our author, in the parody, of which we have just given a large specimen. It must have been published before the 24th October 1687, for it is referred to in "The Laureat," another libel against Dryden, inscribed by Mr Luttrel with that date. This assault affected him the more, as coming from persons with whom he had lived on habits of civility. He is even said to have shed tears upon this occasion; a report probably exaggerated, but which serves to shew, that he was sensible he had exposed himself to the most unexpected assailants, by the unpopularity of the cause which he had espoused. Some further particulars respecting this controversy are mentioned in Dryden's Life. Another poet, or parodier, published "The Revolter, a tragi-comedy," in which he brings the doctrines of the "Religio Laici," and of the "Hind and Panther," in battle array against each other, and rails at the author of both with the most unbounded scurrility.[80]

Not only new enemies arose against him, but the hostility of former and deceased foes seemed to experience a sort of resurrection. Four Letters, by Matthew Clifford of the Charter-House, containing notes upon Dryden's poems and plays, were now either published for the first time, or raked up from the obscurity of a dead-born edition, to fill up the cry of criticism against him on all sides. They are coarse and virulent to the last degree, and so far served the purpose of the publishers; but, as they had no reference to "The Hind and Panther," that defect was removed by a supplementary Letter from the facetious Tom Brown, an author, whose sole wish was to attain the reputation of a successful buffoon, and who, like the jesters of old, having once made himself thoroughly absurd and ridiculous, gained a sort of privilege to make others feel his grotesque raillery.[81] Besides the reflections contained in this letter, Brown also published "The New Converts exposed, or Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion," in two parts; the first of which appeared in 1688, and the second in 1690. From a passage in the preface to the first part, which may serve as a sample of Tom's buffoonery, we learn, Dryden publicly complained, that, although he had put his name to "The Hind and Panther," those who criticized or replied to that poem had not imitated his example.[82]

Another of these witty varlets published, in 1688, "Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith, touching the Supreme Head and Infallible Guide of the Church, in two letters, &c. by J. R. a convert of Mr Bayes," licensed June the 1st, 1688. From this pamphlet we have given some extracts in the introductory remarks to "Religio Laici," pp. 9, 10.

There were, besides, many libels of the most personal kind poured forth against Dryden by the poets who supplied the usual demand of the hawkers. One of the most virulent contains a singular exhibition of rage and impotence. It professes to contain a review of our poet's life and literary labours, and calls itself "The Laureat." This, as containing some curious particulars, is given below.[83]

The cry against our author being thus general, we may reasonably suppose, that he would have taken some opportunity to exercise his powers of retort upon those who were most active or most considerable among the aggressors, and that Montague and Prior stood a fair chance of being coupled up with Doeg and Og, his former antagonists. But, if Dryden entertained any intention of retaliation, the Revolution, which crushed his rising prospects, took away both the opportunity and inclination. From that period, the fame of "The Hind and Panther" gradually diminished, as the controversy between Protestant and Papist gave way to that between Whig and Tory. Within a few years after the first publication of the poem, Swift ranks it among the compositions of Grubstreet; ironically terms it, "the master-piece of a famous author, now living, intended as a complete abstract of sixteen thousand schoolmen, from Scotus to Bellarmine;" and immediately subjoins, "Tommy Potts, supposed by the same hand, by way of Supplement to the former."[84] With such acrimony do men of genius treat the productions of each other; and so certain it is, that, to enjoy permanent reputation, an author must chuse a theme of permanent interest.

THE
PREFACE.

The nation is in too high a ferment, for me to expect either fair war, or even so much as fair quarter, from a reader of the opposite party. All men are engaged either on this side or that; and though conscience is the common word which is given by both, yet if a writer fall among enemies, and cannot give the marks of their conscience, he is knocked down before the reasons of his own are heard. A preface, therefore, which is but a bespeaking of favour, is altogether useless. What I desire the reader should know concerning me, he will find in the body of the poem, if he have but the patience to peruse it. Only this advertisement let him take before-hand, which relates to the merits of the cause.

No general characters of parties (call them either sects or churches) can be so fully and exactly drawn, as to comprehend all the several members of them; at least all such as are received under that denomination. For example; there are some of the church by law established, who envy not liberty of conscience to dissenters; as being well satisfied that, according to their own principles, they ought not to persecute them. Yet these, by reason of their fewness, I could not distinguish from the numbers of the rest, with whom they are embodied in one common name. On the other side, there are many of our sects, and more indeed than I could reasonably have hoped, who have withdrawn themselves from the communion of the Panther, and embraced this gracious indulgence of his majesty in point of toleration. But neither to the one nor the other of these is this satire any way intended: it is aimed only at the refractory and disobedient on either side. For those, who are come over to the royal party, are consequently supposed to be out of gun-shot.[85] Our physicians have observed, that, in process of time, some diseases have abated of their virulence, and have in a manner worn out their malignity, so as to be no longer mortal; and why may not I suppose the same concerning some of those, who have formerly been enemies to kingly government, as well as Catholic religion? I hope they have now another notion of both, as having found, by comfortable experience, that the doctrine of persecution is far from being an article of our faith.[86]

It is not for any private man to censure the proceedings of a foreign prince:[87] but, without suspicion of flattery, I may praise our own, who has taken contrary measures, and those more suitable to the spirit of Christianity. Some of the dissenters, in their addresses to his majesty, have said, "That he has restored God to his empire over conscience."[88] I confess, I dare not stretch the figure to so great a boldness: but I may safely say, that conscience is the royalty and prerogative of every private man. He is absolute in his own breast, and accountable to no earthly power for that which passes only betwixt God and him. Those who are driven into the fold are, generally speaking, rather made hypocrites than converts.

This indulgence being granted to all the sects, it ought in reason to be expected, that they should both receive it, and receive it thankfully. For, at this time of day, to refuse the benefit, and adhere to those whom they have esteemed their persecutors, what is it else but publicly to own, that they suffered not before for conscience-sake, but only out of pride and obstinacy, to separate from a church for those impositions, which they now judge may be lawfully obeyed? After they have so long contended for their classical ordination (not to speak of rites and ceremonies) will they at length submit to an episcopal? If they can go so far, out of complaisance to their old enemies, methinks a little reason should persuade them to take another step, and see whither that will lead them.[89]

Of the receiving this toleration thankfully, I shall say no more, than that they ought, and I doubt not they will consider from what hand they received it. It is not from a Cyrus, a heathen prince, and a foreigner,[90] but from a christian king, their native sovereign; who expects a return in specie from them, that the kindness, which he has graciously shewn them, may be retaliated on those of his own persuasion.

As for the poem in general, I will only thus far satisfy the reader, that it was neither imposed on me, nor so much as the subject given me by any man. It was written during the last winter, and the beginning of this spring; though with long interruptions of ill health and other hindrances. About a fortnight before I had finished it, his majesty's Declaration for liberty of conscience came abroad; which, if I had so soon expected, I might have spared myself the labour of writing many things which are contained in the third part of it. But I was always in some hope, that the church of England might have been persuaded to have taken off the penal laws and the test, which was one design of the poem, when I proposed to myself the writing of it.

It is evident that some part of it was only occasional, and not first intended: I mean that defence of myself, to which every honest man is bound, when he is injuriously attacked in print; and I refer myself to the judgment of those, who have read the answer to the Defence of the late king's Papers, and that of the duchess, (in which last I was concerned) how charitably I have been represented there.[91] I am now informed both of the author and supervisors of this pamphlet, and will reply, when I think he can affront me: for I am of Socrates's opinion, that all creatures cannot. In the mean time let him consider whether he deserved not a more severe reprehension than I gave him formerly, for using so little respect to the memory of those, whom he pretended to answer; and, at his leisure, look out for some original treatise of humility, written by any Protestant in English; (I believe I may say in any other tongue:) for the magnified piece of Duncombe on that subject, which either he must mean, or none, and with which another of his fellows has upbraided me, was translated from the Spanish of Rodriguez; though with the omission of the seventeenth, the twenty-fourth, the twenty-fifth, and the last chapter, which will be found in comparing of the books.[92]

He would have insinuated to the world, that her late Highness died not a Roman Catholic. He declares himself to be now satisfied to the contrary, in which he has given up the cause: for matter of fact was the principal debate betwixt us. In the mean time, he would dispute the motives of her change; how preposterously, let all men judge, when he seemed to deny the subject of the controversy, the change itself.[93] And because I would not take up this ridiculous challenge, he tells the world I cannot argue: but he may as well infer, that a Catholic cannot fast, because he will not take up the cudgels against Mrs James,[94] to confute the Protestant religion.

I have but one word more to say concerning the poem as such, and abstracting from the matters, either religious or civil, which are handled in it. The First Part, consisting most in general characters and narration, I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of heroic poesy. The Second, being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as possibly I could; yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had not frequent occasions for the magnificence of verse. The Third, which has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be, more free and familiar than the two former.

There are in it two episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the main design; so that they are properly parts of it, though they are also distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use of the common-places of satire, whether true or false, which are urged by the members of the one church against the other: at which I hope no reader of either party will be scandalized, because they are not of my invention, but as old, to my knowledge, as the times of Boccace and Chaucer on the one side, and as those of the Reformation on the other.

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER.

A milk-white Hind,[95] immortal and unchanged,

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;

Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,

And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds

Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.[96]

Not so her young; for their unequal line

Was hero's make, half human, half divine.

Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate,

The immortal part assumed immortal state.

Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,[97]

Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,

Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose,

And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.

Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,

Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.

So captive Israel multiplied in chains,

A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.

With grief and gladness mixed, the mother viewed

Her martyr'd offspring, and their race renewed;

Their corps to perish, but their kind to last,

So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.

Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,

And wandered in the kingdoms, once her own.

The common hunt, though from their rage restrained

By sovereign power, her company disdained,

Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye

Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity

'Tis true, she bounded by, and trip'd so light,

They had not time to take a steady sight;

For truth has such a face and such a mien,

As to be loved needs only to be seen.

The bloody Bear, an independent beast,

Unlicked to form, in groans her hate exprest.[98]

Among the timorous kind, the quaking Hare

Professed neutrality, but would not swear.[99]

Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,

Mimicked all sects, and had his own to chuse;

Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,

And paid at church a courtier's compliment.[100]

The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he,[101]

But whitened with the foam of sanctity,

}

With fat pollutions filled the sacred place, }

And mountains levelled in his furious race; }

So first rebellion founded was in grace. }

But since the mighty ravage, which he made

In German forests, had his guilt betrayed,

With broken tusks, and with a borrowed name,

He shunned the vengeance, and concealed the shame;

So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile

False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;[102]

The graceless beast by Athanasius first

Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed;

His impious race their blasphemy renewed,

And nature's king through nature's optics viewed.

Reversed, they viewed him lessened to their eye,

Nor in an infant could a God descry;

New swarming sects to this obliquely tend,

Hence they began, and here they all will end.

What weight of antient 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!

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!

Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;[103]

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?

Can I my reason to my faith compel,

And shall my sight, and touch, and taste rebel?

Superior faculties are set aside;

Shall their subservient organs be my guide?

Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,

And winking tapers shew the sun his way;

For what my senses can themselves perceive,

I need no revelation to believe.

Can they, who say the host should be descried

By sense, define a body glorified?

Impassable, and penetrating parts?

Let them declare by what mysterious arts

}

He shot that body through the opposing might, }

Of bolts and bars impervious to the light, }

And stood before his train confessed in open sight.[104] }

For since thus wondrously he passed, 'tis plain,

One single place two bodies did contain;

And sure the same Omnipotence as well

Can make one body in more places dwell.

Let reason then at her own quarry fly,

But how can finite grasp infinity?

'Tis urged again, that faith did first commence

By miracles, which are appeals to sense,

And thence concluded, that our sense must be

The motive still of credibility;

For latter ages must on former wait,

And what began belief, must propagate.

But winnow well this thought, and you shall find

'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.

Were all those wonders wrought by power divine,

As means or ends of some more deep design?

Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,

To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son.

God thus asserted, man is to believe

Beyond what sense and reason can conceive,

And, for mysterious things of faith, rely

On the proponent, heaven's authority.

If, then, our faith we for our guide admit,

Vain is the farther search of human wit;

As when the building gains a surer stay,

We take the unuseful scaffolding away.

Reason by sense no more can understand;

The game is played into another hand.

}

Why chuse we then like bilanders [105] to creep }

Along the coast, and land in view to keep, }

When safely we may launch into the deep? }

}

In the same vessel, which our Saviour bore, }

Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore, }

And with a better guide a better world explore. }

Could he his Godhead veil with flesh and blood,

And not veil these again to be our food?

His grace in both is equal in extent,

The first affords us life, the second nourishment.

}

And if he can, why all this frantic pain, }

To construe what his clearest words contain, }

And make a riddle what he made so plain? }

To take up half on trust, and half to try,

Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry;

}

Both knave and fool the merchant we may call, }

To pay great sums, and to compound the small; }

For who would break with heaven, and would not break for all? }

Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed;

Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.

Faith is the best ensurer of thy bliss;

The bank above must fail, before the venture miss.

But heaven and heaven-born faith are far from thee,

Thou first apostate to divinity.

Unkennelled range in thy Polonian plains;

A fiercer foe the insatiate Wolf remains.

Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more,

That beasts of prey are banished from thy shore;

The bear, the boar, and every savage name,

Wild in effect, though in appearance tame,

Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower,

And, muzzled though they seem, the mutes devour.

}

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race }

Appears with belly gaunt, and famished face; }

Never was so deformed a beast of grace. }

}

His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, }

Close clap'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, }

And pricks up his predestinating ears.[106] }

His wild disordered walk, his hagard eyes,

Did all the bestial citizens surprise.

Though feared and hated, yet he ruled a while,

As captain or companion of the spoil.

Full many a year his hateful head had been

For tribute paid, nor since in Cambria seen;

The last of all the litter 'scaped by chance,

And from Geneva first infested France.

Some authors thus his pedigree will trace,

But others write him of an upstart race;

Because of Wickliffe's brood no mark he brings,

But his innate antipathy to kings.

These last deduce him from the Helvetian kind,

Who near the Leman-lake his consort lined;

That fiery Zuinglius first the affection bred,

And meagre Calvin blest the nuptial bed.

In Israel some believe him whelped long since,

When the proud sanhedrim oppressed the prince;

Or, since he will be Jew, derive him higher,

When Corah with his brethren did conspire

From Moses' hand the sovereign sway to wrest,

And Aaron of his ephod to divest;

'Till opening earth made way for all to pass,

And could not bear the burden of a class.[107]

The Fox and he came shuffled in the dark,

If ever they were stowed in Noah's ark;

Perhaps not made; for all their barking train

The dog (a common species) will contain;

}

And some wild curs, who from their masters ran, }

Abhorring the supremacy of man, }

In woods and caves the rebel-race began. }

O happy pair, how well have you increased!

What ills in church and state have you redressed!

With teeth untried, and rudiments of claws,

Your first essay was on your native laws;

}

Those having torn with ease, and trampled down, }

Your fangs you fastened on the mitred crown, }

And freed from God and monarchy your town. }

What though your native kennel still be small,

Bounded betwixt a puddle and a wall;[108]

Yet your victorious colonies are sent

Where the north ocean girds the continent.

Quickened with fire below, your monsters breed

In fenny Holland, and in fruitful Tweed;

And, like the first, the last affects to be

Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.

As, where in fields the fairy rounds are seen,

A rank sour herbage rises on the green;

So, springing where those midnight elves advance,

Rebellion prints the footsteps of the dance.

}

Such are their doctrines, such contempt they show }

To heaven above, and to their prince below, }

As none but traitors and blasphemers know. }

God like the tyrant of the skies is placed,

And kings, like slaves, beneath the crowd debased.

So fulsome is their food, that flocks refuse

To bite, and only dogs for physic use.

As, where the lightning runs along the ground,

No husbandry can heal the blasting wound;

Nor bladed grass, nor bearded corn succeeds,

But scales of scurf and putrefaction breeds;

Such wars, such waste, such fiery tracks of dearth

Their zeal has left, and such a teemless earth.

But, as the poisons of the deadliest kind

Are to their own unhappy coasts confined;

As only Indian shades of sight deprive,

And magic plants will but in Colchos thrive;

So presbytery and pestilential zeal

Can only flourish in a commonweal.

From Celtic woods is chased the wolfish crew;[109]

But ah! some pity e'en to brutes is due;

Their native walks, methinks, they might enjoy,

Curbed of their native malice to destroy.

Of all the tyrannies on human-kind,

The worst is that which persecutes the mind.

Let us but weigh at what offence we strike;

'Tis but because we cannot think alike.

In punishing of this, we overthrow

The laws of nations and of nature too.

Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway,

Where still the stronger on the weaker prey;

Man only of a softer mould is made,

Not for his fellows' ruin, but their aid;

Created kind, beneficent and free,

The noble image of the Deity.

One portion of informing fire was given

To brutes, the inferior family of heaven.

The smith divine, as with a careless beat,

Struck out the mute creation at a heat;

But, when arrived at last to human race,

The Godhead took a deep considering space;

And, to distinguish man from all the rest,

Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast;

And mercy mixt with reason did impart,

One to his head, the other to his heart;

Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive;

The first is law, the last prerogative.

}

And like his mind his outward form appeared, }

When, issuing naked to the wondering herd, }

He charmed their eyes; and, for they loved, they feared }

}

Not armed with horns of arbitrary might, }

Or claws to seize their furry spoils in fight, }

Or with increase of feet to o'ertake them in their flight; }

}

Of easy shape, and pliant every way, }

Confessing still the softness of his clay, }

And kind as kings upon their coronation day;[110] }

With open hands, and with extended space

Of arms, to satisfy a large embrace.

Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man

His kingdom o'er his kindred world began;

Till knowledge misapplied, misunderstood,

And pride of empire, soured his balmy blood.

Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins;

The murderer Cain was latent in his loins;

And blood began its first and loudest cry,

For differing worship of the Deity.

Thus persecution rose, and farther space

Produced the mighty hunter [111] of his race.

Not so the blessed Pan [112] his flock increased,

Content to fold them from the famished beast:

Mild were his laws; the sheep and harmless hind

Were never of the persecuting kind.

}

Such pity now the pious pastor shows, }

Such mercy from the British Lion flows,[113] }

That both provide protection from their foes. }

Oh happy regions, Italy and Spain,

Which never did those monsters entertain!

The Wolf, the Bear, the Boar, can there advance

No native claim of just inheritance;

And self-preserving laws, severe in show,

May guard their fences from the invading foe.

Where birth has placed them, let them safely share

The common benefit of vital air;

Themselves unharmful, let them live unharmed,

Their jaws disabled, and their claws disarmed;

Here, only in nocturnal howlings bold,

They dare not seize the Hind, nor leap the fold.

More powerful, and as vigilant as they,

The Lion awfully forbids the prey.

}

Their rage repressed, though pinched with famine sore, }

They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar; }

Much is their hunger, but their fear is more. }

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,

And stand, like Adam, naming every beast,

Were weary work; nor will the muse describe

A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe;

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,

In fields their sullen conventicles found.[114]

These gross, half-animated, lumps I leave;

Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive.

But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher

Than matter, put in motion, may aspire;

}

Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay; }

So drossy, so divisible are they, }

As would but serve pure bodies for allay; }

Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things

As only buz to heaven with evening wings;

Strike in the dark, offending but by chance,

Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.

They know not beings, and but hate a name;

To them the Hind and Panther are the same.

The Panther, sure the noblest, next the Hind,

And fairest creature of the spotted kind;

Oh, could her in-born stains be washed away,

She were too good to be a beast of prey!

How can I praise, or blame, and not offend,

Or how divide the frailty from the friend?

Her faults and virtues lie so mixed, that she

Nor wholly stands condemned, nor wholly free.

Then, like her injured Lion, let me speak;

He cannot bend her, and he would not break.

Unkind already, and estranged in part,

The Wolf begins to share her wandering heart.

Though unpolluted yet with actual ill,

She half commits who sins but in her will.

If, as our dreaming platonists report,

There could be spirits of a middle sort,

Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell,

Who just dropt half-way down, nor lower fell;[115]

So poised, so gently she descends from high,

It seems a soft dismission from the sky.

Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretence

Her clergy-heralds make in her defence;

A second century not half-way run,

Since the new honours of her blood begun.

A lion, old, obscene, and furious made

By lust, compressed her mother in a shade;

Then, by a left-hand marriage, weds the dame,

Covering adultery with a specious name;[116]

So schism begot; and sacrilege and she,

A well matched pair, got graceless heresy.

God's and kings' rebels have the same good cause,

To trample down divine and human laws;

Both would be called reformers, and their hate

Alike destructive both to church and state.

}

The fruit proclaims the plant; a lawless prince }

By luxury reformed incontinence; }

By ruins, charity; by riots, abstinence. }

}

Confessions, fasts, and penance set aside, }

Oh with what ease we follow such a guide, }

Where souls are starved, and senses gratified! }

}

Where marriage-pleasures midnight prayer supply, }

And mattin bells, a melancholy cry, }

Are tuned to merrier notes, Increase and multiply.[117] }

}

Religion shews a rosy-coloured face; }

Not hattered [118] out with drudging works of grace; }

A down-hill reformation rolls apace. }

}

What flesh and blood would crowd the narrow gate, }

Or, till they waste their pampered paunches, wait? }

All would be happy at the cheapest rate. }

Though our lean faith these rigid laws has given,

The full-fed Musselman goes fat to heaven;

For his Arabian prophet with delights

Of sense allured his eastern proselytes.

The jolly Luther, reading him, began

To interpret scriptures by his alcoran;

To grub the thorns beneath our tender feet,

And make the paths of paradise more sweet,

Bethought him of a wife, ere half way gone,

For 'twas uneasy travelling alone;

And, in this masquerade of mirth and love,

Mistook the bliss of heaven for Bacchanals above.

Sure he presumed of praise, who came to stock

The etherial pastures with so fair a flock,

Burnished, and battening on their food, to show

Their diligence of careful herds below.[119]

Our Panther, though like these she changed her head,

Yet, as the mistress of a monarch's bed,[120]

Her front erect with majesty she bore,

The crosier wielded, and the mitre wore.

Her upper part of decent discipline

Shewed affectation of an ancient line;

And fathers, councils, church and churches head,

Were on her reverend phylacteries [121] read.

But what disgraced and disavowed the rest,

Was Calvin's brand, that stigmatized the beast.

Thus, like a creature of a double kind,

In her own labyrinth she lives confined;

To foreign lands no sound of her is come,

Humbly content to be despised at home.

Such is her faith, where good cannot be had,

At least she leaves the refuse of the bad:

Nice in her choice of ill, though not of best,

And least deformed, because reformed the least.

In doubtful points betwixt her differing friends,

Where one for substance, one for sign contends,

Their contradicting terms she strives to join;[122]

Sign shall be substance, substance shall be sign.

}

A real presence all her sons allow, }

And yet 'tis flat idolatry to bow, }

Because the god-head's there they know not how. }

}

Her novices are taught, that bread and wine }

Are but the visible and outward sign, }

Received by those who in communion join; }

But the inward grace, or the thing signified,

His blood and body, who to save us died,[123]

The faithful this thing signified receive:

What is't those faithful then partake or leave?

For, what is signified and understood,

Is, by her own confession, flesh and blood.

Then, by the same acknowledgment, we know

They take the sign, and take the substance too.

The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood,

But nonsense never can be understood.

Her wild belief on every wave is tost;

But sure no church can better morals boast.

True to her king her principles are found;

Oh that her practice were but half so sound![124]

Stedfast in various turns of state she stood,

And sealed her vowed affection with her blood:[125]

}

Nor will I meanly tax her constancy, }

That interest or obligement made the tye, }

Bound to the fate of murdered monarchy. }

Before the sounding axe so falls the vine,

Whose tender branches round the poplar twine.

She chose her ruin, and resigned her life,

In death undaunted as an Indian wife:

A rare example! but some souls we see

Grow hard, and stiffen with adversity:

}

Yet these by fortune's favours are undone; }

Resolved,[126] into a baser form they run, }

And bore the wind, but cannot bear the sun. }

Let this be nature's frailty, or her fate,

Or Isgrim's counsel, her new-chosen mate,[127]

Still she's the fairest of the fallen crew;

No mother more indulgent, but the true.

Fierce to her foes, yet fears her force to try,

Because she wants innate authority;

For how can she constrain them to obey,

Who has herself cast off the lawful sway?

Rebellion equals all, and those, who toil

In common theft, will share the common spoil.

Let her produce the title and the right,

Against her old superiors first to fight;

If she reform by text, even that's as plain

For her own rebels to reform again.

As long as words a different sense will bear,

And each may be his own interpreter,

Our airy faith will no foundation find,

The word's a weathercock for every wind:

The bear, the fox, the wolf, by turns prevail;

The most in power supplies the present gale.

The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid

To church and councils, whom she first betrayed;

No help from fathers or tradition's train:

Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain,

And by that scripture, which she once abused

To reformation, stands herself accused.[128]

What bills for breach of laws can she prefer,

Expounding which she owns herself may err?

}

And, after all her winding ways are tried, }

If doubts arise, she slips herself aside, }

And leaves the private conscience for the guide. }

If, then, that conscience set the offender free,

It bars her claim to church authority.

How can she censure, or what crime pretend,

But scripture may be construed to defend?

Even those, whom for rebellion she transmits

To civil power, her doctrine first acquits;

Because no disobedience can ensue,

Where no submission to a judge is due;

Each judging for himself by her consent,

Whom, thus absolved, she sends to punishment.

Suppose the magistrate revenge her cause,

'Tis only for transgressing human laws.

How answering to its end a church is made,

Whose power is but to counsel and persuade?

O solid rock, on which secure she stands!

Eternal house, not built with mortal hands!

O sure defence against the infernal gate,

A patent during pleasure of the state!

Thus is the Panther neither loved nor feared,

A mere mock queen of a divided herd;

Whom soon by lawful power she might controul,

Herself a part submitted to the whole.

Then, as the moon who first receives the light

By which she makes our nether regions bright,

So might she shine, reflecting from afar

The rays she borrowed from a better star;

Big with the beams which from her mother flow,

And reigning o'er the rising tides below:[129]

Now, mixing with a savage crowd, she goes,

And meanly flatters her inveterate foes;

Ruled while she rules, and losing every hour

Her wretched remnants of precarious power.

One evening, while the cooler shade she sought,

Revolving many a melancholy thought,

Alone she walked, and looked around in vain,

With rueful visage, for her vanished train:

None of her sylvan subjects made their court;

Levées and couchées passed without resort.

So hardly can usurpers manage well

Those, whom they first instructed to rebel:

More liberty begets desire of more;

The hunger still increases with the store.

}

Without respect, they brushed along the wood, }

Each in his clan, and, filled with loathsome food, }

Asked no permission to the neighbouring flood. }

The Panther, full of inward discontent,

Since they would go, before them wisely went;

Supplying want of power by drinking first,

As if she gave them leave to quench their thirst.

Among the rest, the Hind, with fearful face,

Beheld from far the common watering place,

Nor durst approach; till with an awful roar

The sovereign Lion bade her fear no more.[130]

Encouraged thus, she brought her younglings nigh,

Watching the motions of her patron's eye,

And drank a sober draught; the rest, amazed,

Stood mutely still, and on the stranger gazed;

}

Surveyed her part by part, and sought to find }

The ten-horned monster in the harmless Hind, }

Such as the Wolf and Panther had designed.[131] }

They thought at first they dreamed; for 'twas offence

With them, to question certitude of sense,

}

Their guide in faith: but nearer when they drew, }

And had the faultless object full in view, }

Lord, how they all admired her heavenly hue! }

}

Some, who, before, her fellowship disdained, }

Scarce, and but scarce, from in-born rage restrained, }

Now frisked about her, and old kindred feigned. }

Whether for love or interest, every sect

Of all the savage nation shewed respect.

The viceroy Panther could not awe the herd;

The more the company, the less they feared.

}

The surly Wolf with secret envy burst, }

Yet could not howl; (the Hind had seen him first;)[132] }

But what he durst not speak, the Panther durst. }

For when the herd, sufficed, did late repair

To ferny heaths, and to their forest lair,

She made a mannerly excuse to stay,

Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way;

That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk

Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.

With much good-will the motion was embraced,

To chat a while on their adventures passed;

Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot

Her friend and fellow-sufferer in the plot.[133]

Yet wondering how of late she grew estranged,

Her forehead cloudy, and her countenance changed,

She thought this hour the occasion would present,

To learn her secret cause of discontent;

}

Which well she hoped, might be with ease redressed, }

Considering her a well-bred civil beast, }

And more a gentlewoman than the rest. }

After some common talk what rumours ran,

The lady of the spotted muff began.

NOTES
ON
THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.
PART I.

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.—P. [119].

The critics fastened on this line with great exultation, concluding, that doomed and fated mean precisely the same thing. "Faith, Mr Bayes," says one of these gentlemen, "if you were doomed to be hanged, whatever you were fated to 'twould give you but small comfort."[134] This criticism is quite erroneous; doom, in its general acceptation, meaning merely a sentence of any kind, the pronouncing which by no means necessarily implies its execution. In the criminal courts of Scotland, the sentence is always concluded with this formula, "and this I pronounce for doom." Till of late years, a special officer recited the sentence after the judge, and was thence called the doomster,[135] an office now performed by the clerk of court. The criticism is founded on the word doom having been often, and even generally, used as synonimous to the sentence of heaven, and therefore inevitable. But in the text, it is obvious that the doom, or sentence, of an earthly tribunal is placed in opposition to the decree of Providence.

The bloody Bear, an independent beast,

Unlicked to forms, &c.—P. [120].

The sect of Independents arose to great eminence in the civil wars, when the enthusiastic spirits were deemed entitled to preferment upon earth, in proportion to the extravagance of their religious zeal. Hume has admirably described their leading tenets, or rather the scorn with which they discarded the principles of other religious sects; for their peculiarities consisted much more in their neglect and contempt of all forms, than in any rules or dogmata of their own.

"The Independents rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, and would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors, no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed, within itself, a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction, but one destitute of temporal sanctions, over its own pastor and its own members. The election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and, as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands, was, as in all other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthusiasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office. The fanaticism of the Independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every ceremony, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervours of zeal, and guided by the illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse and communication with heaven."

Butler thus describes the Independents:

The Independents, whose first station

Was in the rear of reformation:

A mongrel kind of church dragoons,

That served for horse and foot at once,

And in the saddle of one steed,

The Saracen and Christian rid,

Were free of every spiritual order,

To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder.

It is well known, that these sectaries obtained the final ascendancy in the civil wars. Cromwell, their chief, was highly gifted as a preacher as well as a warrior; witness his "learned, devout, and conscientious exercise, held at Sir Peter Temple's, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon Romans xiii. 1."

Among the timorous kind, the quaking Hare

Professed neutrality, but would not swear.—P. [120].

As Mr Hume's account of the rise of this sect (the quakers) is uncommonly lively, I take the liberty to insert it at length; though, perhaps, the passage does not call for so prolonged a quotation. After describing the ascetic solitude of George Fox, their founder, he proceeds:

"When he had been sufficiently consecrated, in his own imagination, he felt that the fumes of self-applause soon dissipate, if not continually supplied by the admiration of others; and he began to seek proselytes. Proselytes were easily gained, at a time when all men's affections were turned towards religion, and when extravagant modes of it were sure to be most popular. All the forms of ceremony, invented by pride and ostentation, Fox and his disciples, from a superior pride and ostentation, carefully rejected: Even the ordinary rites of civility were shunned, as the nourishment of carnal vanity and self-conceit. They would bestow no titles of distinction: The name of friend was the only salutation with which they indiscriminately accosted every one. To no person would they make a bow, or move their hat, or give any signs of reverence. Instead of that affected adulation introduced into modern tongues, of speaking to individuals as if they were a multitude, they returned to the simplicity of ancient languages; and thou and thee were the only expressions which, on any consideration, they would be brought to employ.

"Dress too, a material circumstance, distinguished the members of this sect. Every superfluity and ornament was carefully retrenched: No plaits to their coat, no buttons to their sleeves: No lace, no ruffles, no embroidery. Even a button to the hat, though sometimes useful, yet not being always so, was universally rejected by them with horror and detestation.

"The violent enthusiasm of this sect, like all high passions, being too strong for the weak nerves to sustain, threw the preachers into convulsions, and shakings, and distortions in their limbs; and they thence received the appellation of Quakers. Amidst the great toleration which was then granted to all sects, and even encouragement given to all innovations, this sect alone suffered persecution. From the fervour of their zeal, the quakers broke into churches, disturbed public worship, and harrassed the minister and audience with railing and reproaches. When carried before a magistrate, they refused him all reverence, and treated him with the same familiarity as if he had been their equal. Sometimes they were thrown into mad-houses, sometimes into prisons: Sometimes whipped, sometimes pilloried. The patience and fortitude with which they suffered, begat compassion, admiration, esteem. A supernatural spirit was believed to support them under those sufferings, which the ordinary state of humanity, freed from the illusions of passion, is unable to sustain.

"The quakers creep'd into the army: But, as they preached universal peace, they seduced the military zealots from their profession, and would soon, had they been suffered, have put an end, without any defeat or calamity, to the dominion of the saints. These attempts became a fresh ground for persecution, and a new reason for their progress among the people.

"Morals, with this sect, were carried, or affected to be carried, to the same degree of extravagance as religion. Give a quaker a blow on one cheek, he held up the other: Ask his cloke, he gave you his coat also. The greatest interest could not engage him in any court of judicature, to swear even to the truth. He never asked more for his wares than the precise sum which he was determined to accept. This last maxim is laudable, and continues still to be religiously observed by that sect.

"No fanatics ever carried farther the hatred to ceremonies, forms, orders, rites, and positive institutions. Even baptism and the Lord's supper, by all other sects believed to be interwoven with the very vitals of Christianity, were disdainfully rejected by them. The very Sabbath they profaned. The holiness of churches they derided; and they would give to these sacred edifices no other appellation than that of shops, or steeple-houses. No priests were admitted in their sects: Every one had received, from immediate illumination, a character much superior to the sacerdotal. When they met for divine worship, each rose up in his place, and delivered the extemporary inspirations of the Holy Ghost: Women were also admitted to teach the brethren, and were considered as proper vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit. Sometimes a great many preachers were moved to speak at once: Sometimes a total silence prevailed in their congregation.

"Some quakers attempted to fast forty days in imitation of Christ; and one of them bravely perished in the experiment. A female quaker came naked into the church where the protector sat; being moved by the spirit, as she said, to appear as a sign to the people. A number of them fancied, that the renovation of all things had commenced, and that clothes were to be rejected, together with other superfluities.—The sufferings which followed the practice of this doctrine, were a species of persecution not well calculated for promoting it."

The quakers were particularly favoured by James II., owing to the interest which Penn, the settler of Pennsylvania, had with that monarch. That person took a lead in the controversy concerning the Indulgence, by publishing a pamphlet, entitled, "Good Advice to the Church of England."

Next her, the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,

Mimicked all sects, and had his own to chuse;

Still, when the Lion looked, his knees he bent,

And paid at church a courtier's compliment.—P. [120].

The sect of free-thinkers, who professed a disbelief in revealed religion, was to be found even among the fanatical ranks of the Long Parliament. Harvey, Martin, Sidney, and others, were considered as the chiefs of this little party. After the restoration of Charles II., these loose principles became prevalent among his gay courtiers, and were supposed to have been privately adopted by the king himself, who was educated by the sceptic Hobbes. As the free-thinkers taught a total disbelief of revelation, and indifference for religious forms, they left their disciples at liberty occasionally to conform to whatever creed, or form of worship, might appear most conducive to their temporal interests. Sunderland was supposed to belong to this sect, for he made his change to Popery, without even the form of previous instruction or conference; evincing to the whole world, that, being totally indifferent about all religions, he was ready to embrace any that would best serve his immediate views. This statesman's character, as a latitudinarian in religion, is mentioned with great bitterness by the Princess Anne, afterwards queen, in her private correspondence with her sister, the Princess of Orange.—See Dalrymple's Memoirs, Vol. II. p. 169. 8vo. edit. Dryden probably intended a sarcasm at Sunderland, or some such time-serving courtier, for his occasional conformity with the royal faith, of which there were several instances at the time. These persons, as they attended James to mass, were compared to Naaman, who, on adopting the Jewish religion, craved an indulgence for waiting upon his master to the house of the idol Rimmon. It is hinted in "The Hind and Panther Transversed," that Dryden's satire is personal; for he is made to quote the lines, and to add, by way of commentary, "That galls somewhere! Egad, I cannot leave it off, though I were cudgelled every day for it."

The church party, among other pamphlets intended to ridicule the Declaration of Indulgence, and as a parody of the addresses of the dissenters on that occasion, published, "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, the Humble Address of the Atheists, or the Sect of Epicureans." After congratulating the king on having freed his subjects from the solemn superstition of oaths, they proceed: "Your majesty was pleased to wish, that all your subjects were of your own religion; and perhaps every division wishes you were of theirs; but, for our parts, we freely declare, that if ever we should be obliged to profess any religion, we would prefer the Church of Rome, which does not much trouble the world with the affairs of invisible beings, and is very civil and indulgent to the failings of human nature. That church can ease us from the grave fatigues of religion, and, for our monies, allow us proxies, both for piety and penances: We can easily swallow and digest a wafer deity, and will never cavil at the mass in an unknown tongue, when the sacrifice itself is so unintelligible. We shall never scruple the adoration of an image, when the chiefest religion is but imagination; and we are willing to allow the Pope an absolute power to dispense with all penal laws, in this world and in another. But before we return to Rome, the greatest origin of atheism, we wish the Pope, and all his vassal princes, would free the world from the fear of hell and devils, the inquisition and dragoons, and that he would take off the chimney-money of purgatory, and custom and excise of pardons and indulgencies, which are so much inconsistent with the flourishing trade and grandeur of the nation. As for the engagements of lives and fortunes, the common compliment of addressers, we confess we have a more peculiar tenderness for those most sacred concernments; but yet we will hazard them in defence of your majesty, with as much constancy and resolution as your majesty will defend your indulgence; that is, so far as the adventure will serve our designs and interest.

}

From the Devil-Tavern, the 5th of }

November, 1688. Presented by }

Justice Baldock, and was graciously }

received." }

The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he,

But whitened with the foam of sanctity,

With fat pollutions filled the sacred place,

And mountains levelled in his furious race;

So first rebellion founded was in grace.

But since the mighty ravage, which he made

In German forests, had his guilt betrayed,

With broken tusks, and with a borrowed name,

He shunned the vengeance, and concealed the shame. P. [120.]

The sect of Anabaptists, whose principal tenet is the disallowing of infant baptism, arose in Germany and the Low Countries about the year 1521. This new light, for such it was esteemed, happened unfortunately to appear to some of the most ignorant and ferocious of the Low German burghers and boors. Thomas Muncer, by birth a Saxon, was the principal apostle of this sect. He preached both against the Papists and Luther, recommending the eschewing of open crimes, the chastening of the body by severities of abstinence, and the wearing a long beard. With these tenets, he combined that of an immediate intercourse with God, by demanding of him signs and tokens, which would be infallibly granted, and that of an universal community of goods. These two last doctrines, concerning spiritual and temporal matters, were admirably calculated to turn the heads of his followers. Being banished from Saxony, he seized upon the monastery of Muhlhans, from which he expelled the monks; and afterwards made a convert of one Pfeifer, a daring enthusiast, who, because in a dream he had put to flight an innumerable number of mice, made no doubt he was destined to vanquish all principalities and powers. Muncer easily prevailed on this visionary conqueror to head the miners of the country of Mansfeldt, in some ferocious inroads into Saxony. The Dukes of Saxony and Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other German princes, marched against these madmen, whom Muncer stimulated to resistance, by assuring them, that a rainbow, which happened then to be visible, was an indubitable sign of victory. The poor deluded wretches accordingly suffered themselves to be quietly cut to pieces, with their eyes fixed on the heavenly sign, in expectation of divine assistance. Muncer was made prisoner, and recanted before his death, only blaming the princes for their cruelty and oppression to their vassals, which drove them to desperation;—so, if he lived a false prophet, he died a true preacher. His death, and that of Pfeifer, with the slaughter made among their followers, did not extirpate the heresy; and the most dreadful consequences attended, for some time, the progress of these enthusiastic opinions. A tailor, called Bockholdt, better known by the name of John of Leyden, with his associates, Rotman, Matthews, and Cnipperdoling, in 1535, actually possessed themselves of the city of Munster, expelled the bishop, and commenced the reign of the saints. Their leader, under the strange and horrible delusion that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost, played the most outrageous pranks of lust and cruelty that ever madness dictated: Yet, amidst their frenzy, the Anabaptists had valour and conduct sufficient to defend the city for a length of time against the bishop and his allies; and while the unfortunate inhabitants were in the utmost misery, the enthusiasts themselves revelled in the indulgence of every licentious appetite. At length the city was taken, and a cruel, though deserved punishment, inflicted upon those who had been the leaders in this holy warfare. John of Leyden himself was torn to pieces with hot pincers. After this memorable event, those who retained the principles of this sect were not desirous of being distinguished by a name which the excesses of these fanatics had rendered an abomination to all the Christian world. They were generally confounded with the Independents, with whom they hold many principles in common, particularly, I believe, the disavowal of any clerical order. Yet if, for a time, they "lurked in sects unseen," as Dryden assures us, the sunshine of general toleration soon brought them out under their own proper appellation. We have, among the addresses of various classes of dissenters upon the Declaration of Indulgence, that of the Anabaptists in and about the city of London, who, indeed, were the very first in expressing their thanks and loyalty. The Anabaptists of Leicestershire, the Independents and Baptists of Gloucester, the Anabaptists of Cheshire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire, &c. &c. &c. all came forward with loyal acclamations on the same occasion.

——With greater guile

False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil;

The graceless beast by Athanasius first

Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed.—P. [121.]

Arius, the propagator of a great heresy in the Christian church, denied that God the Son was equal to God the Father, or that he was co-existent with him. See page 16. This doctrine he maintained in the council at Nice against Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy; and although his doctrines were condemned by the general council, and he himself banished, yet his party was so powerful as to accomplish his restoration, and the banishment of Athanasius, who fled into the Thebais, or deserts of Upper Egypt. The schism thus occasioned, continued long to divide the Christian church. Lelius Socinus, a nobleman of Sienna, revived and enlarged the doctrine of Arius, about the latter end of the sixteenth century. His nephew Faustus collected, arranged, and published his opinions, which have since had many followers. The Socinians teach the worship of one God, without distinction of persons; affirming, that the Holy Ghost is but another expression for the power of God; and that Jesus Christ is only the Son of God by adoption. As they deny our Saviour's divinity, they disavow, of course, the doctrine of redemption, and consider him only as a prophet, gifted with a more than usual share of inspiration, and sealing his mission by his blood. This heresy has, at different times, and under various disguises and modifications, insinuated itself into the Christian church, forming, as it were, a resting place, though but a tottering one, between natural and revealed religion. Here, I fear, the author's lines apply:

To take up half on trust, and half to try,

Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry;

Both knave and fool the merchant we may call,

To pay great sums, and to compound the small;

For who would break with heaven, and would not break for all?

This heretical belief was adopted by the Protestants of Poland and of Hungary, especially those who were about this time in arms under Count Teckeli against the emperor. Hence Dryden bids the Fox,

Unkennelled, range in thy Polonian plains.

Let them declare by what mysterious arts

He shot that body through the opposing might,

Of bolts and bars, impervious to the light,

And stood before his train confessed in open sight.—P. [122].

"Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you."

Again, "And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you."—The Gospel of St John, chap. xx. verses 19. 26.

From these passages of Scripture, Dryden endeavours to confute the objection to transubstantiation, founded on the host being consecrated in various places at the same time, in each of which, however, the body of Christ becomes present, according to the Papist doctrine. This being predicated of the real body of our Saviour, the Protestants allege is impossible, as matter can only be in one place at the same time. Dryden, in answer, assumes, that Christ entered into the meeting of the disciples, by actually passing through the closed doors of the apartment; and as, at the moment of such passage, two bodies must have been in the same place at the same instant, the body of Jesus namely, and the substance through which he passed, the poet founds on it as an instance of a transgression of a natural law, proved from Scripture, as violent as that of one body being in several different places at once. But the text does not prove the major part of Dryden's proposition; it is not stated positively by the evangelist, that our Saviour passed through the doors which were shut, but merely that he came and stood among his disciples without the doors being opened; which miraculous appearance might take place many ways besides that on which Dryden has fixed for the foundation of his argument.

[Note VIII.]

}

More haughty than the rest, the Wolfish race }

Appears with belly gaunt, and famished face; }

Never was so deformed a beast of grace. }

His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,

Close clapped for shame; but his rough crest he rears,

And pricks up his predestinating ears.—P. [124.]

The personal appearance of the Presbyterian clergy was suited by an affectation of extreme plainness and rigour of appearance. A Geneva cloak and band, with the hair close cropped, and covered with a sort of black scull-cap, was the discriminating attire of their teachers. This last article of dress occasioned an unseemly projection of their ears, and procured those who affected it the nick-name of prick-eared fanatics, and the still better known appellation of Round-heads. Our author proceeds, with great bitterness, to investigate the origin of Calvinism. His account of the rise and destruction of a sect of heretics in Cambria may be understood to refer to the ancient British church, which disowned the supremacy of the see of Rome, refused to adopt her ritual, and opposed St Augustin's claims to be metropolitan of Britain, in virtue of Pope Gregory's appointment. They held two conferences with Augustin; at one of which he pretended to work a miracle by the cure of a blind man; at the second, seven British bishops, and a numerous deputation from the monastery of Bangor, disputed with Augustin, who denounced vengeance against them by the sword of the Saxons, in case they refused to submit to the see of Rome. His prophecy, which had as little effect upon the Welch clergy as his miracle, was shortly afterwards accomplished: For Ethelfred, the Saxon king of Northumberland, having defeated the British under the walls of Chester, cut to pieces no fewer than twelve hundred of the monks of Bangor, who had come to assist their countrymen with their prayers. Our author alludes to this extermination of the British recusant clergy, by comparing it to the census, or tribute of wolves-heads, imposed on the Cambrian kings. It has been surmised by some authors, that Augustin himself instigated this massacre, and thereby contributed to the accomplishment of his own prophecy. Other authorities say, that he died in 604, and that the monks of Bangor were slain in 613. Perhaps, however, our author did not mean to carry the rise of Presbytery so far back, but only referred to the doctrines of Wiccliff, who, in the reign of Edward III., and his successor Richard II., taught publicly at Oxford several doctrines inconsistent with the supremacy of the Pope, and otherwise repugnant to the doctrines of the Roman church. He was protected during his lifetime by John of Gaunt; but, forty years after his death, his bones were dug up and burned for heresy. His followers were called Lollards, and were persecuted with great severity in the reign of Henry V., Lord Cobham and many others being burned to death. Thinking, perhaps, either of these too honourable and ancient a descent for the English Presbyterians, our author next refers to Heylin, who brings them from Geneva,[136] where the reformed doctrine was taught by the well known Zuinglius, and the still more famous Calvin. The former began to preach the Reformation at Zurich about 1518, and disputed publicly with one Sampson, a friar, whom the Pope had sent thither to distribute indulgences. Zuinglius was persecuted by the bishop of Constance; but, being protected by the magistrates of Zurich, he set him at defiance, and in 1523 held an open disputation before the senate, with such success, that they commanded the traditions of the church to be thrown aside, and the gospel to be taught through all their canton. Zuinglius, in some respects, merited the epithet of fiery, which Dryden has given him; he was an ardent lover of liberty, and dissuaded his countrymen from a league with the French, by which it must have been endangered; he vindicated, from Scripture, the doctrine of resisting oppressors and asserting liberty, of which he said God was the author, and would be the defender;[137] and, finally, he was killed in battle between the inhabitants of Zurich and those of the five small cantons. The conquerors, being Catholics, treated his dead body with the most shameless indignity.

The history of Calvin is too well known to need recital in this place. He was expelled from France, his native country, on account of his having adopted the doctrines of the reformers, and, taking refuge in Geneva, was appointed professor of divinity there in 1536. But being afterwards obliged to retire from thence, on account of a quarrel about the administration of the communion to certain individuals, Calvin taught a French congregation at Strasburgh. He may be considered as the founder of the Presbyterian doctrine, differing from that of Luther in denying consubstantiation, and affirming, in a large extent, the doctrine of predestination, founded upon election to grace. The poet proceeds to describe the progress of this sect:

With teeth untried, and rudiments of claws,

Your first essay was on your native laws;

}

Those having torn with ease, and trampled down, }

Your fangs you fastened on the mitred crown, }

And freed from God and monarchy your town. }

What though your native kennel still be small,

Bounded betwixt a puddle and a wall;

Yet your victorious colonies are sent

Where the north ocean girds the continent.

Quickened with fire below, your monsters breed

In fenny Holland, and in fruitful Tweed;

And like the first the last affects to be,

Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.

The citizens of Geneva, before they adopted the reformed religion, were under the temporal, as well as the ecclesiastical, authority of a bishop. But, in 1528, when they followed the example of the city of Berne, in destroying images, and abolishing the Roman ceremonies, the bishop and his clergy were expelled from the city, which from that time was considered as the cradle of Presbytery. As they had made choice of a republican form of government for their little state, our author infers, that democracy is most congenial to their new form of religion. It is no doubt true, that the Presbyterian church government is most purely democratical; which perhaps recommended it in Holland. It is also true, that the Presbyterian divines have always preached, and their followers practised, the doctrine of resistance to oppression, whether affecting civil or religious liberty. But if Dryden had looked to his own times, he would have seen, that the Scottish Presbyterians made a very decided stand for monarchy after the death of Charles I.; and even such as were engaged in the conspiracy of Baillie of Jerviswood, which was in some respects the counter-part of the Ryehouse-plot, refused to take arms, because they suspected that the intentions of Sidney, and others of the party in England, were to establish a commonwealth. I may add, that, in latter times, no body of men have shewn themselves more attached to the king and constitution than the Presbyterian clergy of Scotland.

There is room for criticism also in the poetry of these lines. I question whether fenny Holland and fruitful Tweed, in other words, a marsh and a river, could form a favourable medium for communicating the influence of the quickening fire below.

[Note IX.]

From Celtic woods is chased the wolfish crew;

But ah! some pity e'en to brutes is due;

Their native walks, methinks, they might enjoy,

Curbed of their native malice to destroy.—P. [126.]

It is remarkable how readily sentiments of toleration occur, even to the professors of the most intolerant religion, when their minds have fair play to attend to them. The edict of Nantes, by which Henry IV. secured to his Huguenot subjects the undisturbed exercise of their religion, was the recompense of the great obligations he owed to them, and a sort of compensation for his having preferred power to conscience; an edict, declared unalterable, and which had even been sanctioned by Louis XIV. himself, so late as 1680, was, in 1685, finally abrogated. The violence with which the persecution of the Protestants was then pushed on, almost exceeds belief. The principal and least violent mode of conversion, adopted by the king and his minister Louvois, was by quartering upon those of the reformed religion large parties of soldiers, who were licenced to commit every outrage in their habitations short of rape and murder. When, by this species of persecution, a Huguenot had been once compelled to hear mass, he was afterwards treated as a relapsed heretic, if he shewed the slightest disposition to resume the religion in which he had been brought up. James II., in two letters to the Prince of Orange, beseeching toleration for the regular priests in Holland, fails not to condemn the conduct of Louis towards his Protestant subjects; yet, with gross inconsistency, or the deepest dissimulation, he was at the same time congratulating Barillon on his Most Christian Majesty's care for the conversion of his subjects, and hoping God would grant him the favour of completing so great a work.[138] And just so our author, after blaming the persecution of the Huguenots, congratulates Italy and Spain upon possessing such just and excellent laws, as the rules of the inquisitorial church courts.

[Note X.]

A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe,

Who far from steeples, and their sacred sound,

In fields their sullen conventicles found.—P. [129.]

The dregs of the fanaticism of the last age fermented, during that of Charles II., into various sects of sullen enthusiasts, who distinguished themselves by the different names of Brownists, Families of Love, &c. &c. In many cases they rejected all the usual aids of devotion, and, holding their meetings in the open air, and in solitary spots, nursed their fanaticism by separating themselves from the more rational part of mankind. Dryden has elsewhere described them with equal severity;

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed,

Of the true old enthusiastic breed;

'Gainst form and order they their powers employ,

Nothing to build, and all things to destroy.

In Scotland, large conventicles were held in the mountains and morasses by the fiercest of the Covenanters, whom persecution had driven frantic. These men, known now by the name of Cameronians, considered popery and prelacy as synonymous terms; and even stigmatized, as Erastians and self-seekers, the more moderate Presbyterians, who were contented to exercise their religion as tolerated by the government.

[Note XI.]

Her novices are taught, that bread and wine

Are but the visible and outward sign,

Received by those who in communion join;

But the inward grace, or the thing signified,

His blood and body, who to save us died, &c.—P. [133.]

The poet alludes to the doctrine of the church of England concerning the eucharist, thus expressed in the twenty-eighth article of faith:

"The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death; insomuch, that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.

"Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine, in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy writ; but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.

"The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the supper only, after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean, whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the supper, is faith."

Dryden insists upon a supposed inconsistency in this doctrine; but his argument recoils upon the creed of his own church. The words of our Saviour are to be interpreted as they must have been meant when spoken; a circumstance which excludes the literal interpretation contended for by the Romanists: For, by the words "Hoc est corpus meum," our Saviour cannot be then supposed to have meant, that the morsel which he gave to his disciples was transformed into his body, which then stood before their eyes, and which all but heretics allow to have been a real, natural, human body, incapable, of course, of being multiplied into as many bodies as there were persons to partake of the communion, and of retaining its original and identical form at the same time. But unless such a multiplied transformation actually took place, our Saviour's words to his apostles must have been emblematical only. Queen Elizabeth's homely lines are, after all, an excellent comment on this point of divinity:

His was the word that spake it;

He took the bread and brake it;

And what that word did make it,

That I believe, and take it.

[Note XII.]

True to her king her principles are found;

Oh that her practice were but half so sound!—P. [133.]

The pretensions of the church of England to loyalty were carried to a degree of extravagance, which her divines were finally unable to support, unless they had meant to sign the destruction of their religion. This was owing to the recollection of the momentous period which had lately elapsed. The interest of the church had been deeply interwoven with that of the crown; their struggle, sufferings, and fall, during the civil wars, had been in common, as well as their triumphant restoration: the maxim of "no king no bishop," was indelibly imprinted on the hearts of the clergy; in fine, it seemed impossible that any thing should cut asunder the ties which combined them. In sanctioning, therefore, the doctrines of the most passive loyalty, the English divines probably thought that they were only paying a tribute to the throne, which was to be returned by the streams of royal bounty and grace towards the church. Even the religion of James did not, before his accession, shake their confidence, or excite their apprehensions. They were far more afraid of the fanatics, under whose iron yoke they had so lately groaned, than of the Roman Catholics, who, for three generations, had been a depressed, and therefore a tractable body, whose ceremonies and church government resembled, in some respects, their own, and who had sided with them during the civil wars against the Protestant sectaries. But when the members of the established church perceived, that the rapid steps which James adopted would soon place the Catholics in a condition to rival, and perhaps to overpower her, they were obliged to retract and explain away many of their former hasty expressions of absolute and unconditional devotion to the royal pleasure. The king, and his Catholic counsellors, saw with astonishment and indignation, that professions of the most ample subjection were now to be understood as limited and restricted by the interests of the church. In the height of their resentment, even the church of England's pretensions to a peculiar degree of loyalty were unthankfully turned into ridicule, in such bitter and sarcastic terms as the following, which occur in a pamphlet published expressly "with allowance," i. e. by royal permission.

"I have often considered, but could never yet find a convincing reason, why that part of the nation, (which is commonly called the church of England) should dare appropriate to themselves alone the principles of true loyalty; and that no other church or communion on earth can be consistent with monarchy, or, indeed, with any government.

"This is a presumption of so high a nature, that it renders the church of England a despicable enemy to the rest of mankind: For, what can be more ridiculous than to say, that a congregation of people, calling themselves a church, which cannot pretend to an infallibility even in matters of faith, having, since their first institution, made several fundamental changes of religious worship, should, however, assume to themselves an inerribility in point of civil obedience to the temporal magistrate? Or, what can be more injurious than to aver, that no other sect or community on earth, from the rising to the setting sun, can be capable of this singular gift of loyalty? So that the church of England alone, (if you have faith enough to believe her own testimony,) is that beautiful spouse of Christ, holy in her doctrine, and infallible in her duty to the supreme magistrate, whom (by a revelation peculiar to herself) she owns both for her temporal and spiritual head. But I doubt much, whether her ipsa dixit alone will pass current with all the nations of the universe, without making further search into the veracity of this bold assertion."

A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.

[Note XIII.]

Or Isgrim's counsel.—P. [134.]

This name for the Wolf is taken from an ancient political satire, called "Reynard the Fox;" in which an account is given of the intrigues at the court of the Lion; the impeachment of the Fox; his various wiles and escapes; finally, his conquering his accuser in single combat. This ancient apologue was translated from the German by the venerable Caxton, and published the 6th day of June, 1481. It became very popular in England; and we derive from it all the names commonly applied to animals in fable, as Reynard the fox, Tybert the cat, Bruin the bear, Isgrim the wolf, &c. The original of this piece is still so highly esteemed in Germany, that it was lately modernized by Goethé, and is published among his "Neüe Schriften." It is probable that this ancient satire might be the original of "Mother Hubbard's Tale," and that Dryden himself may have had something of its plan in his eye, when writing "The Hind and Panther." As it had become merely a popular story-book, some of his critics did not fail to make merry with his adopting any thing from such a source. "Smith. I have heard you quote Reynard the fox.—Bayes. Why, there's it now; take it from me, Mr Smith, there is as good morality, and as sound precepts, in The Delectable History of Reynard the Fox, as in any book I know, except Seneca. Pray, tell me, where, in any other author, could I have found so pretty a name for a wolf as Isgrim?"[139]

[Note XIV.]

The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid

To church and councils, whom she first betrayed;

No help from fathers or tradition's train,

Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain,

And by that Scripture, which she once abused

To reformation, stands herself accused.—P. [135.]

The author here prefers an argument much urged by the Catholic divines against those of the church of England, and which he afterwards resumes in the Second Part. The English divines, say they, halt between two opinions; they will not allow the weight of tradition when they dispute with the church of Rome, but refer to the scripture, interpreted by each man's private opinion, as the sole rule of faith; while, on the other hand, they are obliged to have recourse to tradition in their disputes with the Presbyterians and dissenters, because, without its aid, they could not vindicate from scripture alone their hierarchy and church-government. To this it was answered, by the disputants on the church of England's side, that they owned no such inconsistent opinion as was imputed to them; but that they acknowledged, for their rule of faith, the word of God in general; that by this they understood the written word, or scripture, in contradistinction to the Roman rule of scripture and traditions; and as distinguished, both from the church of Rome, and from heretics and sectaries, they understood by it more particularly the written word or scripture, delivering a sense, owned and declared by the primitive church of Christ in the three creeds, four first general councils, and harmony of the fathers.

Dryden's argument, however, had been, by the Catholics, thought so sound, that it is much dwelt upon in a tract, called, "A Remonstrance, by way of Address to both Houses of Parliament, from the Church of England," the object of which is to recommend an union between the churches of England and of Rome. The former is there represented as holding the following language:

"You cannot be ignorant, that ever since my separation from the church of Rome, I have been attacked by all sorts of dissenters: So that my fate, in this encounter, may be compared to that of a city, besieged by different armies, who fight both against it and one another; where, if the garrison make a sally to damage one, another presently takes an advantage to make an attack. Thus, whilst I set myself vigorously to suppress the papist, the puritan seeks to undermine me; and, whilst I am busied to oppose the puritan, the papist gains ground upon me. If I tell the church of Rome, I did not forsake her, but her errors, which I reformed; my rebellious subjects tell me the same, and that they must make a thorough reformation; and, let me bring what arguments I please, to justify my dissent, they still produce the same against me. If, on the other hand, I plead against the puritan dissenter, and show, that he ought to stand to church-authority, where he is not infallibly certain it commands a sin; the papist presently catches at it, and tells me, I destroy my own grounds of reformation, unless I will pretend to that infallibility which I condemn in them.

"Matters standing thus betwixt me and them, why would it not be a point of prudence in me, (as I doubt not but you would esteem it in a governor of that city I lately mentioned,) to make peace with one of my adversaries, to the end I may with more ease resist the onsets of the other?"

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER,
A POEM.

PART II.

THE
HIND AND PANTHER.
PART SECOND.

Dame, said the Panther, times are mended well,

Since late among the Philistines you fell.[140]

The toils were pitched, a spacious tract of ground

With expert huntsmen was encompassed round;

The inclosure narrowed; the sagacious power

Of hounds and death drew nearer every hour.

'Tis true, the younger lion [141] 'scaped the snare,

But all your priestly calves lay struggling there,

}

As sacrifices on their altars laid;[142] }

While you, their careful mother, wisely fled, }

Not trusting destiny to save your head. }

}

For, whate'er promises you have applied }

To your unfailing church, the surer side }

Is four fair legs in danger to provide; }

}

And whate'er tales of Peter's chair you tell, }

Yet, saving reverence of the miracle, }

The better luck was yours to 'scape so well.— }

As I remember, said the sober Hind,

Those toils were for your own dear self designed,

As well as me; and with the self-same throw,

To catch the quarry [143] and the vermin too,—

Forgive the slanderous tongues that called you so.

Howe'er you take it now, the common cry

Then ran you down for your rank loyalty,[144]

Besides, in popery they thought you nurst,

As evil tongues will ever speak the worst,

Because some forms, and ceremonies some

You kept, and stood in the main question dumb.

Dumb you were born indeed; but, thinking long,

The test, it seems, at last has loosed your tongue:[145]

And to explain what your forefathers meant,

By real presence in the sacrament,

}

After long fencing pushed against a wall, }

Your salvo comes, that he's not there at all: }

There changed your faith, and what may change may fall. }

Who can believe what varies every day,

Nor ever was, nor will be at a stay?—

Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell,

And I ne'er owned myself infallible,

Replied the Panther: grant such presence were,

Yet in your sense I never owned it there.

A real virtue we by faith receive,

And that we in the sacrament believe.—

Then, said the Hind, as you the matter state,

Not only Jesuits can equivocate;

For real, as you now the word expound,

From solid substance dwindles to a sound.

Methinks, an Æsop's fable you repeat;

You know who took the shadow for the meat:

Your church's substance thus you change at will,

And yet retain your former figure still.

I freely grant you spoke to save your life;

For then you lay beneath the butcher's knife.

Long time you fought, redoubled battery bore,

But, after all, against yourself you swore,

Your former self; for every hour your form

Is chopped and changed, like winds before a storm.

Thus fear and interest will prevail with some;

For all have not the gift of martyrdom.—

The Panther grinned at this, and thus replied:

That men may err was never yet denied;

But, if that common principle be true,

The canon, dame, is levelled full at you.

But, shunning long disputes, I fain would see

That wonderous wight, Infallibility.

Is he from heaven, this mighty champion, come?

Or lodged below in subterranean Rome?

First, seat him somewhere, and derive his race,

Or else conclude that nothing has no place.—

Suppose, though I disown it, said the Hind,

The certain mansion were not yet assigned;

The doubtful residence no proof can bring

Against the plain existence of the thing.

}

Because philosophers may disagree, }

If sight by emission, or reception be, }

Shall it be thence inferred, I do not see?[146] }

}

But you require an answer positive, }

Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give; }

For fallacies in universals live.[147] }

I then affirm, that this unfailing guide

In pope and general councils must reside;

}

Both lawful, both combined; what one decrees }

By numerous votes, the other ratifies: }

On this undoubted sense the church relies.[148] }

'Tis true, some doctors in a scantier space,

I mean, in each apart, contract the place.

Some, who to greater length extend the line,

The church's after-acceptation join.

This last circumference appears too wide;

The church diffused is by the council tied,

As members by their representatives

Obliged to laws, which prince and senate gives.

}

Thus, some contract, and some enlarge the space; }

In pope and council, who denies the place, }

Assisted from above with God's unfailing grace? }

Those canons all the needful points contain;

Their sense so obvious, and their words so plain,

That no disputes about the doubtful text

Have hitherto the labouring world perplexed.

If any should in after-times appear,

New councils must be called, to make the meaning clear;

Because in them the power supreme resides,

And all the promises are to the guides.[149]

This may be taught with sound and safe defence;

But mark how sandy is your own pretence,

Who, setting councils, pope, and church aside,

Are every man his own presuming guide.[150]

The sacred books, you say, are full and plain,

And every needful point of truth contain;

All who can read interpreters may be.

Thus, though your churches disagree,

Yet every saint has to himself alone

The secret of this philosophic stone.

These principles your jarring sects unite,

When differing doctors and disciples fight.

Though Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, holy chiefs,

Have made a battle-royal of beliefs;

Or, like wild horses, several ways have whirled

The tortured text about the Christian world;

Each Jehu lashing on with furious force,

That Turk or Jew could not have used it worse;

No matter what dissension leaders make,

Where every private man may save a stake:

Ruled by the scripture and his own advice,

Each has a blind bye-path to Paradise;

Where, driving in a circle slow or fast,

Opposing sects are sure to meet at last.

}

A wonderous charity you have in store }

For all reformed to pass the narrow door; }

So much, that Mahomet had scarcely more. }

For he, kind prophet, was for damning none;

But Christ and Moses were to save their own:

Himself was to secure his chosen race,

Though reason good for Turks to take the place,

And he allowed to be the better man,

In virtue of his holier Alcoran.

True, said the Panther, I shall ne'er deny

My brethren may be saved as well as I:

Though Huguenots condemn our ordination,

Succession, ministerial vocation;

And Luther, more mistaking what he read,

Misjoins the sacred body with the bread:[151]

Yet, lady, still remember I maintain,

The word in needful points is only plain.—

Needless, or needful, I not now contend,

For still you have a loop-hole for a friend,

}

Rejoined the matron; but the rule you lay }

Has led whole flocks, and leads them still astray, }

In weighty points, and full damnation's way. }

For, did not Arius first, Socinus now,

The Son's eternal Godhead disavow?

And did not these by gospel texts alone

Condemn our doctrine, and maintain their own?

Have not all heretics the same pretence

To plead the scriptures in their own defence?

How did the Nicene council then decide

That strong debate? was it by scripture tried?

No, sure; to that the rebel would not yield;

Squadrons of texts he marshalled in the field:

That was but civil war, an equal set,

Where piles with piles, and eagles eagles met.[152]

With texts point-blank and plain he faced the foe,

And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so?

The good old bishops took a simpler way;

Each asked but what he heard his father say,

Or how he was instructed in his youth,

And by tradition's force upheld the truth.[153]

The Panther smiled at this;—And when, said she,

Were those first councils disallowed by me?

Or where did I at sure tradition strike,

Provided still it were apostolic?[154]

Friend, said the Hind, you quit your former ground,

Where all your faith you did on scripture found:

Now 'tis tradition joined with holy writ;

But thus your memory betrays your wit.

No, said the Panther; for in that I view,

When your tradition's forged, and when 'tis true.

}

I set them by the rule, and, as they square, }

Or deviate from undoubted doctrine there, }

This oral fiction, that old faith declare.— }

Hind. The council steered, it seems, a different course;

They tried the scripture by tradition's force:

}

But you tradition by the scripture try; }

Pursued by sects, from this to that you fly, }

Nor dare on one foundation to rely. }

The word is then deposed, and in this view,

You rule the scripture, not the scripture you.

Thus said the dame, and, smiling, thus pursued:

I see, tradition then is disallowed,

When not evinced by scripture to be true,

And scripture, as interpreted by you.

But here you tread upon unfaithful ground,

Unless you could infallibly expound;

Which you reject as odious popery,

And throw that doctrine back with scorn on me.

Suppose we on things traditive divide,

And both appeal to scripture to decide;

By various texts we both uphold our claim,

Nay, often, ground our titles on the same:

After long labour lost, and time's expence,

Both grant the words, and quarrel for the sense.

Thus all disputes for ever must depend;

For no dumb rule can controversies end.

Thus, when you said,—Tradition must be tried

By sacred writ, whose sense yourselves decide,

You said no more, but that yourselves must be

The judges of the scripture sense, not we.

Against our church-tradition you declare,

And yet your clerks would sit in Moses' chair;

At least 'tis proved against your argument,

The rule is far from plain, where all dissent.—

If not by scriptures, how can we be sure,

Replied the Panther, what tradition's pure?

For you may palm upon us new for old;

All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.

How but by following her, replied the dame,

To whom derived from sire to son they came;

Where every age does on another move,

And trusts no farther than the next above;

Where all the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise,

The lowest hid in earth, the topmost in the skies?

Sternly the savage did her answer mark,

Her glowing eye-balls glittering in the dark,

And said but this:—Since lucre was your trade,

Succeeding times such dreadful gaps have made,

'Tis dangerous climbing: To your sons and you

I leave the ladder, and its omen too.[155]

Hind. The Panther's breath was ever famed for sweet;

But from the Wolf such wishes oft I meet.

You learned this language from the Blatant Beast,[156]

Or rather did not speak, but were possessed.

As for your answer, 'tis but barely urged:

You must evince tradition to be forged;

Produce plain proofs; unblemished authors use

As ancient as those ages they accuse;

Till when, 'tis not sufficient to defame;

An old possession stands, till elder quits the claim.

Then for our interest, which is named alone

To load with envy, we retort your own;

For, when traditions in your faces fly,

Resolving not to yield, you must decry.

As when the cause goes hard, the guilty man

Excepts, and thins his jury all he can;

So when you stand of other aid bereft,

You to the twelve apostles would be left.

Your friend the Wolf did with more craft provide

To set those toys, traditions, quite aside;[157]

And fathers too, unless when, reason spent,

He cites them but sometimes for ornament.

But, madam Panther, you, though more sincere,

Are not so wise as your adulterer;

The private spirit is a better blind,

Than all the dodging tricks your authors find.

}

For they, who left the scripture to the crowd, }

Each for his own peculiar judge allowed; }

The way to please them was to make them proud. }

Thus with full sails they ran upon the shelf;

Who could suspect a cozenage from himself?

On his own reason safer 'tis to stand,

Than be deceived and damned at second-hand.

But you, who fathers and traditions take,

And garble some, and some you quite forsake,

Pretending church-authority to fix,

And yet some grains of private spirit mix,

Are, like a mule, made up of different seed,

And that's the reason why you never breed;

At least, not propagate your kind abroad,

For home dissenters are by statutes awed.

}

And yet they grow upon you every day, }

While you, to speak the best, are at a stay, }

For sects, that are extremes, abhor a middle way: }

}

Like tricks of state, to stop a raging flood, }

Or mollify a mad-brained senate's mood; }

Of all expedients never one was good. }

Well may they argue, nor can you deny,

If we must fix on church authority,

Best on the best, the fountain, not the flood;

That must be better still, if this be good.

Shall she command, who has herself rebelled?

Is antichrist by antichrist expelled?

Did we a lawful tyranny displace,

To set aloft a bastard of the race?

}

Why all these wars to win the book, if we }

Must not interpret for ourselves, but she? }

Either be wholly slaves, or wholly free. }

For purging fires traditions must not fight;

But they must prove episcopacy's right.[158]

Thus, those led horses are from service freed;

You never mount them but in time of need.

Like mercenaries, hired for home defence,

They will not serve against their native prince.

Against domestic foes of hierarchy

These are drawn forth, to make fanatics fly;

}

But, when they see their countrymen at hand, }

Marching against them under church-command, }

Straight they forsake their colours, and disband.— }

Thus she; nor could the Panther well enlarge

With weak defence against so strong a charge;

But said:—For what did Christ his word provide,

If still his church must want a living guide?

And if all-saving doctrines are not there,

Or sacred penmen could not make them clear,

From after-ages we should hope in vain

For truths which men inspired could not explain.—

Before the word was written, said the Hind,

Our Saviour preached his faith to human kind:

From his apostles the first age received

Eternal truth, and what they taught believed.

Thus, by tradition faith was planted first,

Succeeding flocks succeeding pastors nursed.

}

This was the way our wise Redeemer chose, }

Who sure could all things for the best dispose, }

To fence his fold from their encroaching foes. }

He could have writ himself, but well foresaw

The event would be like that of Moses' law;

Some difference would arise, some doubts remain,

Like those which yet the jarring Jews maintain.

No written laws can be so plain, so pure,

But wit may gloss, and malice may obscure;

Not those indited by his first command,

A prophet graved the text, an angel held his hand.

Thus faith was ere the written word appeared,

And men believed not what they read, but heard.

But since the apostles could not be confined

To these, or those, but severally designed

Their large commission round the world to blow,

To spread their faith, they spread their labours too.

Yet still their absent flock their pains did share;

They hearkened still, for love produces care.

And as mistakes arose, or discords fell,

Or bold seducers taught them to rebel,

As charity grew cold, or faction hot,

Or long neglect their lessons had forgot,

For all their wants they wisely did provide,

And preaching by epistles was supplied;

So, great physicians cannot all attend,

But some they visit, and to some they send.

Yet all those letters were not writ to all;

Nor first intended but occasional,

Their absent sermons; nor, if they contain

All needful doctrines, are those doctrines plain.

Clearness by frequent preaching must be wrought

They writ but seldom, but they daily taught;

And what one saint has said of holy Paul,

"He darkly writ," is true applied to all.

}

For this obscurity could heaven provide }

More prudently than by a living guide, }

As doubts arose, the difference to decide? }

A guide was therefore needful, therefore made;

And, if appointed, sure to be obeyed.

Thus, with due reverence to the apostles' writ,

By which my sons are taught, to which submit,

I think, those truths, their sacred works contain,

The church alone can certainly explain;

That following ages, leaning on the past,

May rest upon the primitive at last.

Nor would I thence the word no rule infer,

But none without the church-interpreter;

Because, as I have urged before, 'tis mute,

And is itself the subject of dispute.

}

But what the apostles their successors taught, }

They to the next, from them to us is brought, }

The undoubted sense which is in scripture sought. }

}

From hence the church is armed, when errors rise, }

To stop their entrance, and prevent surprise; }

And, safe entrenched within, her foes without defies. }

}

By these all festering sores her councils heal, }

Which time or has disclosed, or shall reveal; }

For discord cannot end without a last appeal. }

}

Nor can a council national decide, }

But with subordination to her guide: }

(I wish the cause were on that issue tried.) }

Much less the scripture; for suppose debate

Betwixt pretenders to a fair estate,

Bequeathed by some legator's last intent;[159]

(Such is our dying Saviour's testament:)

The will is proved, is opened, and is read,

The doubtful heirs their differing titles plead;

All vouch the words their interest to maintain,

And each pretends by those his cause is plain.

Shall then the testament award the right?

No, that's the Hungary for which they fight;

The field of battle, subject of debate;

The thing contended for, the fair estate.

The sense is intricate, 'tis only clear

What vowels and what consonants are there.

Therefore 'tis plain, its meaning must be tried

Before some judge appointed to decide.—

Suppose, the fair apostate said, I grant,

The faithful flock some living guide should want,

}

Your arguments an endless chace pursue: }

Produce this vaunted leader to our view, }

This mighty Moses of the chosen crew.— }

The dame, who saw her fainting foe retired,

With force renewed, to victory aspired;

}

And, looking upward to her kindred sky, }

As once our Saviour owned his Deity, }

Pronounced his words—"She whom ye seek am I."[160] }

Nor less amazed this voice the Panther heard,

Than were those Jews to hear a God declared.

Then thus the matron modestly renewed:

Let all your prophets and their sects be viewed,

And see to which of them yourselves think fit

The conduct of your conscience to submit;

Each proselyte would vote his doctor best,

With absolute exclusion to the rest:

Thus would your Polish diet disagree,

And end, as it began, in anarchy;

Yourself the fairest for election stand,

Because you seem crown-general of the land;

But soon against your superstitious lawn

Some presbyterian sabre would be drawn;[161]

}

In your established laws of sovereignty }

The rest some fundamental flaw would see, }

And call rebellion gospel-liberty. }

To church-decrees your articles require

Submission mollified, if not entire.[162]

Homage denied, to censures you proceed;

But when Curtana [163] will not do the deed,

You lay that pointless clergy-weapon by,

And to the laws, your sword of justice, fly.

Now this your sects the more unkindly take,

(Those prying varlets hit the blots you make,)

Because some ancient friends of yours declare,

Your only rule of faith the scriptures are,

Interpreted by men of judgment sound,

Which every sect will for themselves expound;

Nor think less reverence to their doctors due

For sound interpretation, than to you.

If then, by able heads, are understood

Your brother prophets, who reformed abroad;

Those able heads expound a wiser way,

That their own sheep their shepherd should obey.

}

But if you mean yourselves are only sound, }

That doctrine turns the reformation round, }

And all the rest are false reformers found; }

}

Because in sundry points you stand alone, }

Not in communion joined with any one; }

And therefore must be all the church, or none. }

Then, till you have agreed whose judge is best,

Against this forced submission they protest;

While sound and sound a different sense explains,

Both play at hardhead till they break their brains;

And from their chairs each other's force defy,

While unregarded thunders vainly fly.

I pass the rest, because your church alone

Of all usurpers best could fill the throne.

}

But neither you, nor any sect beside, }

For this high office can be qualified, }

With necessary gifts required in such a guide. }

}

For that, which must direct the whole, must be }

Bound in one bond of faith and unity; }

But all your several churches disagree. }

The consubstantiating church [164] and priest

Refuse communion to the Calvinist;

}

The French reformed from preaching you restrain, }

Because you judge their ordination vain;[165] }

And so they judge of yours, but donors must ordain. }

In short, in doctrine, or in discipline,

Not one reformed can with another join;

But all from each, as from damnation, fly:

No union they pretend, but in non-popery.

Nor, should their members in a synod meet,

Could any church presume to mount the seat,

Above the rest, their discords to decide;

None would obey, but each would be the guide;

And face to face dissensions would increase,

For only distance now preserves the peace.

All in their turns accusers, and accused;

Babel was never half so much confused;

}

What one can plead, the rest can plead as well; }

For amongst equals lies no last appeal, }

And all confess themselves are fallible. }

Now, since you grant some necessary guide,

All who can err are justly laid aside;

}

Because a trust so sacred to confer }

Shows want of such a sure interpreter; }

And how can he be needful who can err? }

Then, granting that unerring guide we want,

That such there is you stand obliged to grant;

Our Saviour else were wanting to supply

Our needs, and obviate that necessity.

It then remains, that church can only be

The guide, which owns unfailing certainty;

Or else you slip your hold, and change your side,

Relapsing from a necessary guide.

}

But this annexed condition of the crown, }

Immunity from errors, you disown; }

Here then you shrink, and lay your weak pretensions down.[166] }

}

For petty royalties you raise debate; }

But this unfailing universal state }

You shun; nor dare succeed to such a glorious weight; }

And for that cause those promises detest,

With which our Saviour did his church invest;

But strive to evade, and fear to find them true,

As conscious they were never meant to you;

All which the mother-church asserts her own,

And with unrivalled claim ascends the throne.

So, when of old the Almighty Father sate

In council, to redeem our ruined state,

}

Millions of millions, at a distance round, }

Silent the sacred consistory crowned, }

To hear what mercy, mixt with justice, could propound; }

All prompt, with eager pity, to fulfil

The full extent of their Creator's will:

But when the stern conditions were declared,

A mournful whisper through the host was heard,

And the whole hierarchy, with heads hung down,

Submissively declined the ponderous proffer'd crown.

Then, not till then, the Eternal Son from high

Rose in the strength of all the Deity;

}

Stood forth to accept the terms, and underwent }

A weight which all the frame of heaven had bent, }

Nor he himself could bear, but as Omnipotent. }

Now, to remove the least remaining doubt,

That even the blear-eyed sects may find her out,

}

Behold what heavenly rays adorn her brows, }

What from his wardrobe her beloved allows, }

To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse![167] }

Behold what marks of majesty she brings,

Richer than ancient heirs of eastern kings!

Her right hand holds the sceptre and the keys,

To show whom she commands, and who obeys;

With these to bind, or set the sinner free,

With that to assert spiritual royalty.

One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,

Entire, one solid shining diamond;

Not sparkles shattered into sects like you:

One is the church, and must be to be true;

}

One central principle of unity; }

As undivided, so from errors free; }

As one in faith, so one in sanctity. }

Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage

Of heretics opposed from age to age;

}

Still when the giant-brood invades her throne, }

She stoops from heaven, and meets them half way down, }

And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown. }

}

But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand, }

And vainly lift aloft your magic wand, }

To sweep away the swarms of vermin from the land; }

You could, like them, with like infernal force,

Produce the plague, but not arrest the course.

But when the boils and blotches, with disgrace

And public scandal, sat upon the face,

}

Themselves attacked, the Magi strove no more, }

They saw God's finger, and their fate deplore; }

Themselves they could not cure of the dishonest sore.[168] }

Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread,

Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed;

From east to west triumphantly she rides,

All shores are watered by her wealthy tides.

The gospel-sound, diffused from pole to pole,

Where winds can carry, and where waves can roll,

The self-same doctrine of the sacred page

Conveyed to every clime, in every age.

Here let my sorrow give my satire place,

To raise new blushes on my British race.

}

Our sailing ships like common-sewers we use, }

And through our distant colonies diffuse }

The draught of dungeons, and the stench of stews; }

Whom, when their home-bred honesty is lost,

We disembogue on some far Indian coast,

Thieves, pandars, palliards,[169] sins of every sort;

Those are the manufactures we export,

}

And these the missioners our zeal has made; }

For, with my country's pardon, be it said, }

Religion is the least of all our trade. }

}

Yet some improve their traffic more than we; }

For they on gain, their only god, rely, }

And set a public price on piety. }

ndustrious of the needle and the chart,

They run full sail to their Japonian mart;

}

Preventing fear, and, prodigal of fame, }

Sell all of Christian to the very name,[170] }

Nor leave enough of that to hide their naked shame. }

Thus, of three marks, which in the creed we view,

Not one of all can be applied to you;

Much less the fourth. In vain, alas! you seek

The ambitious title of apostolic:[171]

God-like descent! 'tis well your blood can be

Proved noble in the third or fourth degree;

}

For all of ancient that you had before, }

I mean what is not borrowed from our store, }

Was error fulminated o'er and o'er; }

Old heresies condemned in ages past,

By care and time recovered from the blast.[172]

'Tis said with ease, but never can be proved,

The church her old foundations has removed,

And built new doctrines on unstable sands:

Judge that, ye winds and rains! you proved her, yet she stands.

Those ancient doctrines charged on her for new,

Show, when, and how, and from what hands they grew.

We claim no power, when heresies grow bold,

To coin new faith, but still declare the old.

How else could that obscene disease be purged,

When controverted texts are vainly urged?

To prove tradition new, there's somewhat more

Required, than saying, 'twas not used before.

Those monumental arms are never stirred,

Till schism or heresy call down Goliah's sword.

Thus, what you call corruptions, are, in truth,

The first plantations of the gospel's youth;

}

Old standard faith; but cast your eyes again, }

And view those errors which new sects maintain, }

Or which of old disturbed the church's peaceful reign; }

And we can point each period of the time,

When they began, and who begot the crime;

Can calculate how long the eclipse endured,

Who interposed, what digits were obscured:

Of all which are already passed away,

We know the rise, the progress, and decay.

Despair at our foundations then to strike,

Till you can prove your faith apostolic;

A limpid stream drawn from the native source;

Succession lawful in a lineal course.

Prove any church, opposed to this our head,

So one, so pure, so unconfinedly spread,

Under one chief of the spiritual state,

The members all combined, and all subordinate;

Show such a seamless coat, from schism so free,

In no communion joined with heresy;—

}

If such a one you find, let truth prevail; }

Till when, your weights will in the balance fail; }

A church unprincipled kicks up the scale. }

But if you cannot think, (nor sure you can

Suppose in God what were unjust in man,)

}

That He, the fountain of eternal grace, }

Should suffer falsehood for so long a space }

To banish truth, and to usurp her place; }

That seven successive ages should be lost,

And preach damnation at their proper cost;[173]

That all your erring ancestors should die,

Drowned in the abyss of deep idolatry;

If piety forbid such thoughts to rise,

Awake, and open your unwilling eyes:

}

God hath left nothing for each age undone, }

From this to that wherein he sent his Son; }

Then think but well of him, and half your work is done. }

}

See how his church, adorned with every grace, }

With open arms, a kind forgiving face, }

Stands ready to prevent her long-lost son's embrace! }

Not more did Joseph o'er his brethren weep,

Nor less himself could from discovery keep,

When in the crowd of suppliants they were seen,

And in their crew his best-loved Benjamin.

}

That pious Joseph in the church behold, }

To feed your famine, and refuse your gold; }

The Joseph you exiled, the Joseph whom you sold.[174] }

Thus, while with heavenly charity she spoke,

A streaming blaze the silent shadows broke;

}

Shot from the skies a cheerful azure light; }

The birds obscene to forests winged their flight, }

And gaping graves received the wandering guilty sprite. }

Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky,

For James his late nocturnal victory;

The pledge of his almighty Patron's love,

The fireworks which his angels made above.[175]

I saw myself the lambent easy light [176]

Gild the brown horror, and dispel the night;

}

The messenger with speed the tidings bore; }

News, which three labouring nations did restore; }

But heaven's own Nuntius was arrived before. }

By this, the Hind had reached her lonely cell,

And vapours rose, and dews unwholesome fell;

}

When she, by frequent observation wise, }

As one who long on heaven had fixed her eyes, }

Discerned a change of weather in the skies. }

The western borders were with crimson spread,

The moon descending looked all flaming red;

She thought good manners bound her to invite

The stranger dame to be her guest that night.

}

'Tis true, coarse diet, and a short repast, }

She said, were weak inducements to the taste }

Of one so nicely bred, and so unused to fast; }

But what plain fare her cottage could afford,

A hearty welcome at a homely board,

Was freely hers; and, to supply the rest,

An honest meaning, and an open breast;

Last, with content of mind, the poor man's wealth,

A grace-cup to their common patron's [177] health.

This she desired her to accept, and stay,

For fear she might be wildered in her way,

Because she wanted an unerring guide,

And then the dew-drops on her silken hide

}

Her tender constitution did declare, }

Too lady-like a long fatigue to bear, }

And rough inclemencies of raw nocturnal air.[178] }

}

But most she feared, that, travelling so late, }

Some evil-minded beasts might lie in wait, }

And without witness wreak their hidden hate. }

The Panther, though she lent a listening ear,

Had more of lion in her than to fear;

Yet wisely weighing, since she had to deal

With many foes their numbers might prevail,

Returned her all the thanks she could afford,

And took her friendly hostess at her word;

}

Who, entering first her lowly roof, a shed }

With hoary moss and winding ivy spread, }

Honest enough to hide an humble hermit's head, }

}

Thus graciously bespoke her welcome guest: }

So might these walls, with your fair presence blest, }

Become your dwelling-place of everlasting rest; }

Not for a night, or quick revolving year,

Welcome an owner, not a sojourner.

This peaceful seat my poverty secures;

War seldom enters but where wealth allures:

Nor yet despise it; for this poor abode,

Has oft received, and yet receives a God;

A God, victorious of a Stygian race,

Here laid his sacred limbs, and sanctified the place.

}

This mean retreat did mighty Pan [179] contain; }

Be emulous of him, and pomp disdain, }

And dare not to debase your soul to gain.[180] }

The silent stranger stood amazed to see

Contempt of wealth, and wilful poverty;

And, though ill habits are not soon controuled,

Awhile suspended her desire of gold.

}

But civilly drew in her sharpened paws, }

Not violating hospitable laws, }

And pacified her tail, and licked her frothy jaws. }

The Hind did first her country cates provide;

Then couched herself securely by her side.

NOTES
ON
THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.
PART II.

Dame, said the Panther, times are mended well,

Since late among the Philistines you fell.

The toils were pitched, a spacious tract of ground,

With expert huntsmen, was encompassed round;

The enclosure narrowed; the sagacious power

Of hounds and death drew nearer every hour.—P. [161].

In these spirited lines, Dryden describes the dangers in which the English Catholics were involved by the Popish Plot, which rendered them so obnoxious for two years, that even Charles himself, much as he was inclined to favour them, durst not attempt to prevent the most severe measures from being adopted towards them. It is somewhat curious, that the very same metaphor of hounds and huntsmen is employed by one of the most warm advocates for the plot. "Had this plot been a forged contrivance of their own, (i.e. the Papists,) they would at the very first discovery of it have had half a dozen, or half a score, crafty fellows, ready to have attested all the same things; whereas, on the contrary, notwithstanding we are now on a burning scent, we were fain till here of late to pick out, by little and little, all upon a cold scent, and that stained too by the tricks and malice of our enemies. So that had we not had some such good huntsmen as the Right Noble Earl of Shaftesbury, to manage the chase for us, our hounds must needs have been baffled, and the game lost."—Appeal from the Country to the City. State Tracts, p. 407.

As I remember, said the sober Hind,

Those toils were for your own dear self designed,

}

As well as me; and with the self-same throw, }

To catch the quarry and the vermin too, }

(Forgive the slanderous tongues that called you so.) }

Howe'er you take it now, the common cry

Then ran you down for your rank loyalty.—P. [162].

The country party, during the 1679, and the succeeding years, were as much incensed against the divines of the high church of England as against the Papists. The furious pamphlet, quoted in the last note, divides the enemies of this country into four classes; officers, courtiers, over-hot churchmen, and papists. "Over-hot churchmen," it continues, "are bribed to wish well to popery, by the hopes, if not of a cardinal's cap, yet at least by a command over some abbey, priory, or other ecclesiastical preferment whereof the Romish church hath so great plenty. These are the men, who exclaim against our parliament's proceedings, in relation to the plot, as too violent, calling these times by no other name than that of forty or forty-one;[181] when, to amuse as well his sacred majesty as his good people, they again threaten us with another forty-eight; and all this is done to vindicate underhand the Catholic party, by throwing a suspicion on the fanatics. These are the gentlemen who so magnify the principles of Bishop Laud, and so much extol the writings of that same late spirited prelate Dr Heylin, who hath made more Papists, by his books than Christians by his sermons. These are those episcopal Tantivies, who can make even the very scriptures pimp for the court, who out of Urim and Thummim can extort a sermon, to prove the not paying of tithes and taxes to be the sin against the Holy Ghost; and had rather see the kingdom run down with blood, than part with the least hem of a sanctified frock, which they themselves made holy."—Appeal, &c. State Tracts, p. 403. In a very violent tract, written expressly against the influence of the clergy,[182] they are charged with being the principal instruments of the court in corrupting elections. "I find," says the author, when talking of the approaching general election, "all persons very forward to countenance this public work, except the high-flown ritualists and ceremony-mongers of the clergy, who, being in the conspiracy against the people, lay themselves out to accommodate their masters with the veriest villains that can be picked up in all the country, that so we may fall into the hands again of as treacherous and lewd a parliament, as the wisdom of God and folly of man has most miraculously dissolved. To which end they traduce all worthy men for fanatics, schismatics, or favourers of them. Nay, do but pitch upon a gentleman, who believes it his duty to serve his God, his king, and country, faithfully, they cry him down as a person dangerous and disaffected to the government; thinking thereby to scare the people from the freedom of their choice, and then impose their hair-brained journeymen and half-witted fops upon them." In Shadwell's Whig play, called "The Lancashire Witches," he has introduced an high-flying chaplain, as the expression then run, and an Irish priest, who are described as very ready to accommodate each other in all religious tenets, since they agree in disbelieving the popish plot, and in believing that ascribed to the fanatics. These, out of a thousand instances, may serve to show, how closely the country party in the time of Charles II. were disposed to identify the interests of Rome, and of the high church of England. Dryden is therefore well authorised to say, that both communions were aimed at by that cabal, which pushed on the investigation of the supposed plot.

The test, it seems, at last has loosed your tongue.—P. [162].

If there was any ambiguity in the church of England's doctrine concerning the eucharist, it was fully explained by the memorable Test Act, passed in 1678, during the heat of the Popish Plot, by which all persons holding public offices were required, under pain of disqualification, to disown the doctrine of transubstantiation, in the most explicit terms, as also that of image worship. This bill was pressed forwards with great violence by the country party. "I would not," said one of their orators, "have a popishman, or a popish woman, remain here; not a popish dog, or a popish bitch; not so much as a popish cat, to pur and mew about the king." Many of the church of England party opposed this test, from an idea that it was prejudicial to the interests of the crown.

I then affirm, that this unfailing guide

In pope and general councils must reside;

Both lawful, both combined; what one decrees

By numerous votes, the other ratifies;

On this undoubted sense the church relies.—P. [164].

Dryden does not plead the cause of infallibility so high as to declare it lodged in the pope alone; but inclines to the milder and more moderate opinion, which vests it in the church and pope jointly. This was the shape in which the doctrine was stated in the pamphlets generally dispersed from the king's printing-press about this time; whether because James really held the opinion of the Ultramontane, or Gallican church, in this point, or that he thought the more moderate statement was most likely to be acceptable to new converts. In a dialogue betwixt a Missioner and a Plain Man, printed along with the Rosary, in a very small form, and apparently designed for very extensive circulation, the question is thus stated:

"Plain Man. How shall I know what the church teaches, and by what means may I come to know her infallible doctrine?

"Missioner. In those cases, she speaks to us by her supreme courts of judicature, her general councils, which, being the legal representatives of her whole body, she is secured from erring in them as to all things which appertain to faith."

But mark how sandy is your own pretence,

Who, setting councils, pope, and church aside,

Are every man his own presuming guide

The sacred books, you say, are full and plain,

And every needful point of truth contain;

All who can read interpreters may be.—P. [165].

This ultimate appeal to the scriptures against the authority of the church, as it is what the church of Rome has most to dread, is most combated by her followers. Dryden, like a good courtier, adopts here, as well as elsewhere, the arguments which converted his master, Charles II. "We declare," says the king in his first paper, "to believe one Catholic and apostolic church; and it is not left to every phantastical man's head to believe as he pleases, but to the church, to whom Christ left the power upon earth, to govern us in matters of faith, who made these creeds for our directions. It were a very irrational thing to make laws for a country, and leave it to the inhabitants to be interpreters and judges of those laws: For then every man will be his own judge; and, by consequence, no such thing as either right or wrong. Can we therefore suppose, that God Almighty would leave us at those uncertainties, as to give us a rule to go by, and leave every man to be his own judge? I do ask any ingenuous man, Whether it be not the same thing to follow our own phancy, or to interpret the scripture by it? I would have any man shew me, where the power of deciding matters of faith is given to every particular man. Christ left his power to his church, even to forgive sins in heaven; and left his Spirit with them, which they exercised after his resurrection; first by his apostles in their creed, and many years after by the council at Nice, where that creed was made that is called by that name; and by the power which they had received from Christ, they were the judges even of the scripture itself many years after the apostles, which books were canonical, and which were not." Papers found in King Charles's strong box.

The good old bishops took a simpler way;

Each asked but what he heard his father say,

Or how he was instructed in his youth,

And by tradition's force upheld the truth.—P. [167].

Dryden had previously attacked the rule of faith, by private judgment of the Holy Scriptures. His assumption is, that the scriptures having been often misunderstood and abused by heretics of various descriptions, there must be some more infallible guide left us by God as the rule of faith. Instead of trusting, therefore, to individual judgment founded on the scripture, he urges, that the infallibility of faith depends upon oral tradition, handed down, as his communion pretends, by father to son, from the times of the primitive church till this very day. It is upon this foundation that the church of Rome rests her claim to infallibility, as the immediate representative of the apostles and primitive church.

For purging fires traditions must not fight;

But they must prove episcopacy's right.—P. [170].

The doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead, is founded on a passage in the book of Tobit. The Apocrypha not being absolutely rejected by the church of England, but admitted for "example of life and instruction of manners," though not of canonical authority, part of this curious and romantic history is read in the course of the calendar. The domestic circumstance of the dog gave unreasonable scandal to the Puritans, from which the following is a good-humoured vindication. "Give me leave for once to intercede for that poor dog, because he is a dog of good example, for he was faithful, and loved his master; besides, that he never troubles the church on Sundays, when people have their best clothes on; only on a week-day, when scrupulous brethren are always absent, the poor cur makes bold to follow his master." But although the church of England did not receive the traditive belief, founded upon the aforesaid passage concerning prayer for the dead, the dissenters accused her of liberal reference to tradition in the disputes concerning the office of bishop, the nature of which is in the New Testament left somewhat dubious.

[Note VIII.]

But this annexed condition of the crown,

Immunity from errors, you disown;

Here then you shrink, and lay your weak pretensions down. P. [176].

Much of the preceding argument, and this conclusion, is founded upon the following passage in the second paper found in King Charles's strong box. "It is a sad thing to consider what a world of heresies are crept into this nation. Every man thinks himself as competent a judge of the scriptures as the very apostles themselves; and 'tis no wonder that it should be so, since that part of the nation which looks most like a church, dares not bring the true arguments against the other sects, for fear they should be turned against themselves, and confuted by their own arguments. The church of England, as 'tis called, would fain have it thought, that they are the judges in matters spiritual, and yet dare not positively say, that there is no appeal from them; for either they must say, that they are infallible, which they cannot pretend to, or confess, that what they decide in matters of conscience is no further to be followed, than as it agrees with every man's private judgment."

To this the divines of England answered, that they indeed asserted church authority, but without pretending to infallibility; and that while the church decided upon points of faith, she was to be directed and guided by the scriptures, just as the judges of a temporal tribunal are to frame their decisions, not from any innate or infallible authority of their own, but in conformity with the laws of the realm.

[Note IX.]

Behold, what heavenly rays adorn her brows,

What from his wardrobe her beloved allows,

To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse!—P. [177].

In this and the following lines Dryden sets forth his adopted mother-church in all the glowing attributes of majesty and authority. The lines are extremely beautiful, and their policy is obvious, from the following passage in a pretended letter from Father Petre to Father La Chaise. The letter bears every mark indeed of forgery; but it is equally an illustration of Dryden, whether the policy contained in it was attributed by the Protestants to the Catholics as part of their scheme, or was really avowed as such by themselves. "Many English heretics resort often to our sermons; and I have often recommended to our fathers to preach now in the beginning as little as they can of the controversy, because that provokes; but to represent to them the beauty and antiquity of the Catholic religion, that they may be convinced that all that has been said and preached to them, and their own reflections concerning it, have been all scandal."—Somers' Tracts, p. 253. The unity of the Catholic church was also chiefly insisted on during the controversy:

One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound,

Entire; one solid, shining diamond,

Not sparkles shattered into sects like you;

One is the church, and must be to be true.

It seems to have escaped Dryden, that all the various sects which have existed, and do now exist, in the Christian world, may, in some measure, be said to be sparkles shattered from his "solid diamond;" since at one time all Christendom belonged to the Roman church. Thus the disunion of the various sects of Protestants is no more an argument against the church of England than it is against the church of Rome, or the Christian faith in general. All communions insist on the same privilege; and when the church of Rome denounced the Protestants as heretics, like Coriolanus going into exile, they returned the sentence against her who gave it. If it is urged, that, notwithstanding these various defections, the Roman church retained the most extended communion, this plea would place the truth of religious opinions upon the hazardous basis of numbers, which Mahometans might plead more successfully than any Christian church, in proportion as their faith is more widely extended. These arguments of the unity and extent of the church are thus expressed in a missionary tract already quoted, where the Plain Man thus addresses his English parson: "Either shew me, by more plain and positive texts of scripture than what the Missioner has here brought, that God Almighty has promised to preserve his church from essential errors, such as are idolatry, superstition, &c.; or else shew me a church visible in all ages spread over the face of the whole world, secured from such errors, and at unity in itself. A church, that has had all along kings for nursing fathers, and queens for nursing mothers; a church, to which all nations have flowed, and which is authorised to teach them infallibly all those truths which were delivered to the saints without mixtures of error, which destroy sanctity; I say, either shew me, from plain texts of scripture, that Christ's church was not to be my infallible guide; or shew me such a church of Christ as these promises require, distinct from that of the Roman, and from which she has either separated, or been cut off."

[Note X.]

Industrious of the needle and the chart,

They run full sail to their Japonian mart;

Preventing fear, and prodigal of fame,

Sell all of Christian to the very name.—P. [179].

The author has, a little above, used an argument, much to the honour of the Catholic church—her unceasing diligence in labouring for the conversion of the heathen; a task, in which her missionaries have laboured with unwearied assiduity, encountering fatigue, danger, and martyrdom itself, in winning souls to the faith. It has been justly objected, that the spiritual instruction of their converts is but slight and superficial; yet still their missionary zeal forms a strong contrast to the indifference of the reformed churches in this duty. Nothing of the kind has ever been attempted on a great or national scale by the church of England, which gives Catholics room to upbraid her clergy with their unambitious sloth in declining the dignity of becoming bishops in partibus infidelium. The poet goes on to state the scandalous materials with which it has been the universal custom of Britain to supply the population of her colonies; the very dregs and outcasts of humanity being the only recruits whom she destines to establish the future marts for her commodities. The success of such missionaries among the savage tribes, who have the misfortune to be placed in their vicinity, may be easily guessed:

Deliberate and undeceived,

The wild men's vices they received,

And gave them back their own. Wordsworth.

On the other hand, the care of the Catholic missionaries was by no means limited to the spiritual concerns of those heathen among whom they laboured: they extended them to their temporal concerns, and sometimes unfortunately occasioned grievous civil dissensions, and much bloodshed. Something of this kind took place in Japan; where the Christians, having raised a rebellion against the heathens, (for the beaten party, as Dryden says, are always rebels to the victors,) were exterminated, root and branch. This excited such an utter hatred of Catholic priests, and their religion, that they were prohibited, under the deepest denunciations of death and confiscation, from landing in Japan. Nevertheless, the severity of this law did not prevent the Hollanders from sharing in the gainful traffic of the island, which they gained permission to do, by declaring, that they were not Christians, (only meaning, we hope, that they were not Catholics,) but Dutchmen; and it was currently believed, that, in corroboration of their assertion, they were required to trample upon the crucifix, the object of adoration to those whom the Japanese had formerly known under the name of Christians.

[Note XI.]

Thus of three marks which in the creed we view,

Not one of all can be applied to you,

Much less the fourth; in vain, alas! you seek

The ambitious title of apostolic.—P. [179].

The poet is enumerating the marks of the Catholic church, according to the Nicene creed, which he makes out to be Unity, Truth, Sanctity, and Apostolic Derivation, all of which he denies to the church of England. The qualities of truth and sanctity are implied under the word Catholic.

[Note XII.]

That pious Joseph in the church behold,

To feed your famine, and refuse your gold;

The Joseph you exiled, the Joseph whom you sold.—P. [182].

The English Benedictine monks executed a renunciation of the abbey lands, belonging to the order before the Reformation, in order to satisfy the minds of the possessors, and reconcile them to the re-establishment of the ancient religion, by guaranteeing the stability of their property. There appeared, however, to the proprietors of these lands, little generosity in this renunciation, in case the monks were to remain in a condition of inability to support their pretended claim; and, on the other hand, some reason to suspect its validity, should they ever be strong enough to plead their title. The king's declaration of indulgence contained a promise upon this head, which appeared equally ominous: He declared, that he would maintain his loving subjects in their properties and possessions, "as well of church and abbey lands as of any other." The only effect of this clause was to make men enquire, whether popery was so near being established as to make such a promise necessary; and if so, how far the promise itself was to be relied upon, in opposition to the doctrine of resumption, which had always been enforced by the Roman see, even when these church lands fell into the hands of persons of their own persuasion, unless they were dedicated to pious uses. Nor were there wanting persons to remind the proprietors of such lands, that the canons declared that even the pope had no authority to confirm the alienation of the property of the church; that the general council of Trent had solemnly anathematized all who detained church lands; that the Monasticon Anglicanum was carefully preserved in the Vatican as a rule for the intended resumption; and that the reigning pope had obstinately refused to confirm any such alienations by his bulls, though the doing so at this crisis might have removed a great obstacle to the growth of Popery in England.—See, in the State Tracts, a piece called "Abbey Lands not assured to Roman Catholics," Vol. 1. p. 326; and more especially a tract, by some ascribed to Burnet, and by others to Sir William Coventry, entitled, "A Letter written to Dr Burnet, giving some account of Cardinal Pole's secret powers; from which it appears, that it never was intended to confirm the Alienation that was made of the Abbey Lands. To which are added, Two Breves that Cardinal Pole brought over, and some other of his Letters that were never before printed, 1685."

[Note XIII.]

Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky,

For James his late nocturnal victory;

The pledge of his almighty Patron's love,

The fireworks which his angels made above.—P. [182].

The aurora borealis was an uncommon spectacle in England during the 17th century. Its occasional appearance, however, gave foundation to those tales of armies fighting in the air, and similar phenomena with which the credulity of the vulgar was amused. The author seems to allude to some extraordinary display of the aurora borealis on the evening of the battle of Sedgemuir, which was chiefly fought by night. I do not find the circumstance noticed elsewhere. Dryden attests it by his personal evidence.

[Note XIV.]

And then the dew-drops on her silken hide

Her tender constitution did declare,

Too lady-like a long fatigue to bear,

And rough inclemencies of raw nocturnal air.—P. [183].

This seems to be a sarcasm of the same kind with the following: "But," says the zealous Protestant of the mother church, "if you repeal the test, you take away the bulwark that defends the church; for if that were once demolished, the enemy would rush in and possess all; and it is a delicate innocent church that cannot be safe but in a fortified place."—"I must confess, it is a great argument of her modesty to own herself weak and unable to subsist without the support of parliamentary laws, to hang, draw, or quarter her opposers, and without a coercive power in herself to fine and excommunicate all recusants and nonconformists."[183] One would wish to ask this Catholic advocate for universal toleration, if he had ever heard of a court in Popish countries for the prevention of heresy, generally called the Inquisition?

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER.
A POEM.

PART THIRD.

THE
HIND AND THE PANTHER.
PART THIRD.

Much malice, mingled with a little wit,

Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;

}

Because the muse has peopled Caledon }

With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown, }

As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own. }

Let Æsop answer, who has set to view

Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;

And mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,

Has sharply blamed a British lioness;

That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,

Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.[184]

Led by those great examples, may not I

The wonted organs of their words supply?

If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then

For brutes to claim the privilege of men.

Others our Hind of folly will indite,

To entertain a dangerous guest by night.

Let those remember, that she cannot die,

Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;

Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,

Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;[185]

The wary savage would not give offence,

To forfeit the protection of her prince;

But watched the time her vengeance to complete,

When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;[186]

Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,

And with a lenten sallad cooled her blood.

Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,

Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.

For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove

To express her plain simplicity of love,

Did all the honours of her house so well,

No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.

She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,

To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;

}

Remembering every storm which tossed the state, }

When both were objects of the public hate, }

And dropt a tear betwixt for her own childrens' fate. }

Nor failed she then a full review to make

Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;

Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,

Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,

Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,

Her choice of honourable infamy.[187]

On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;

Then with acknowledgment herself she charged;

For friendship, of itself an holy tie,

Is made more sacred by adversity.

Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,

They met like chance companions on the way,

Whom mutual fear of robbers had possessed;

While danger lasted, kindness was professed;

But, that once o'er, the short-lived union ends,

The road divides, and there divide the friends.

The Panther nodded, when her speech was done,

And thanked her coldly in a hollow tone;

But said, her gratitude had gone too far

For common offices of Christian care.

If to the lawful heir she had been true,

She paid but Cæsar what was Cæsar's due.

I might, she added, with like praise describe

Your suffering sons, and so return your bribe:

But incense from my hands is poorly prized;

For gifts are scorned where givers are despised.

}

I served a turn, and then was cast away; }

You, like the gaudy fly, your wings display, }

And sip the sweets, and bask in your great patron's day.—[188] }

This heard, the matron was not slow to find

What sort of malady had seized her mind;

Disdain, with gnawing envy, fell despite,

And cankered malice, stood in open sight;

Ambition, interest, pride without controul,

And jealousy, the jaundice of the soul;

Revenge, the bloody minister of ill,

With all the lean tormentors of the will.

'Twas easy now to guess from whence arose

Her new-made union with her ancient foes;

Her forced civilities, her faint embrace,

Affected kindness, with an altered face;

Yet durst she not too deeply probe the wound,

As hoping still the nobler parts were sound;

But strove with anodynes to assuage the smart,

And mildly thus her medicine did impart.

Complaints of lovers help to ease their pain;

It shows a rest of kindness to complain;

A friendship loth to quit its former hold,

And conscious merit, may be justly bold;

But much more just your jealousy would shew,

If others' good were injury to you:

Witness, ye heavens, how I rejoice to see

Rewarded worth and rising loyalty!

Your warrior offspring, that upheld the crown,

The scarlet honour of your peaceful gown,

Are the most pleasing objects I can find,

Charms to my sight, and cordials to my mind:

When virtue spooms [189] before a prosperous gale,

My heaving wishes help to fill the sail;

And if my prayers for all the brave were heard,

Cæsar should still have such, and such should still reward.

The laboured earth your pains have sowed and tilled,

'Tis just you reap the product of the field:

Yours be the harvest; 'tis the beggar's gain,

To glean the fallings of the loaded wain.

}

Such scattered ears as are not worth your care, }

Your charity, for alms, may safely spare, }

For alms are but the vehicles of prayer. }

My daily bread is literally implored;

I have no barns nor granaries to hoard.

}

If Cæsar to his own his hand extends, }

Say which of yours his charity offends; }

You know, he largely gives to more than are his friends. }

Are you defrauded, when he feeds the poor?

Our mite decreases nothing of your store.

I am but few, and by your fare you see

My crying sins are not of luxury.

}

Some juster motive sure your mind withdraws, }

And makes you break our friendship's holy laws; }

For barefaced envy is too base a cause. }

Show more occasion for your discontent;

Your love, the Wolf, would help you to invent:

Some German quarrel, or, as times go now,

Some French,[190] where force is uppermost, will do.

When at the fountain's head, as merit ought

To claim the place, you take a swilling draught,

How easy 'tis an envious eye to throw,

And tax the sheep for troubling streams below;

Or call her, when no farther cause you find,

An enemy professed of all your kind!

But, then, perhaps, the wicked world would think,

The Wolf designed to eat as well as drink.—

This last allusion galled the Panther more,

Because, indeed, it rubbed upon the sore;

Yet seemed she not to wince, though shrewdly pained,

But thus her passive character maintained.

I never grudged, whate'er my foes report,

Your flaunting fortune in the Lion's court.

You have your day, or you are much belied,

But I am always on the suffering side;

You know my doctrine, and I need not say,

I will not, but I cannot disobey.

Their malice too a sore suspicion brings,

For, though they dare not bark, they snarl at kings.

}

On this firm principle I ever stood; }

He of my sons who fails to make it good, }

By one rebellious act renounces to my blood.[191] }

Ah, said the Hind, how many sons have you,

Who call you mother, whom you never knew!

But most of them, who that relation plead,

Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead.

They gape at rich revenues which you hold,

And fain would nibble at your grandame gold;

Enquire into your years, and laugh to find

Your crazy temper shows you much declined.

}

Were you not dim and doated, you might see }

A pack of cheats that claim a pedigree, }

No more of kin to you, than you to me. }

Do you not know, that, for a little coin,

Heralds can foist a name into the line?

}

They ask you blessing but for what you have, }

But, once possessed of what with care you save, }

The wanton boys would piss upon your grave. }

}

Your sons of latitude, that court your grace, }

Though most resembling you in form and face, }

Are far the worst of your pretended race; }

And, but I blush your honesty to blot,

Pray God you prove them lawfully begot!

For, in some Popish libels I have read,

The Wolf has been too busy in your bed;[192]

At least their hinder parts, the belly-piece,

The paunch, and all that Scorpio claims,[193] are his.

Nor blame them for intruding in your line;

Fat bishoprics are still of right divine.

Think you, your new French proselytes are come,

To starve abroad, because they starved at home?

Your benefices twinkled from afar,

They found the new Messiah by the star;

Those Swisses fight on any side for pay,

And 'tis the living that conforms, not they.

}

Mark with what management their tribes divide; }

Some stick to you, and some to t'other side, }

That many churches may for many mouths provide.[194] }

More vacant pulpits would more converts make;

All would have latitude enough to take:

}

The rest unbeneficed your sects maintain; }

For ordinations, without cures, are vain, }

And chamber practice is a silent gain. }

Your sons of breadth at home are much like these;

Their soft and yielding metals run with ease;

They melt, and take the figure of the mould,

But harden and preserve it best in gold.—

Your Delphic sword, the Panther then replied,

Is double-edged, and cuts on either side.

Some sons of mine, who bear upon their shield

Three steeples argent in a sable field,

Have sharply taxed your converts, who, unfed,

Have followed you for miracles of bread;[195]

Such, who themselves of no religion are,

Allured with gain, for any will declare.

Bare lies, with bold assertions, they can face;

But dint of argument is out of place.

The grim logician puts them in a fright;

'Tis easier far to flourish than to fight.[196]

}

Thus, our eighth Henry's marriage they defame; }

They say, the schism of beds began the game, }

Divorcing from the church to wed the dame; }

Though largely proved, and by himself professed,

That conscience, conscience would not let him rest,—[197]

I mean, not till possessed of her he loved,

And old, uncharming Catherine was removed.

For sundry years before he did complain,

And told his ghostly confessor his pain.

}

With the same impudence, without a ground, }

They say, that, look the reformation round, }

No treatise of humility is found.[198] }

}

But if none were, the gospel does not want; }

Our Saviour preached it, and I hope you grant, }

The sermon on the mount was protestant.— }

}

No doubt, replied the Hind, as sure as all }

The writings of Saint Peter and Saint Paul; }

On that decision let it stand, or fall. }

Now for my converts, who, you say, unfed,

Have followed me for miracles of bread.

Judge not by hearsay, but observe at least,

If since their change their loaves have been increased.

The Lion buys no converts; if he did,

Beasts would be sold as fast as he could bid.

Tax those of interest, who conform for gain,

Or stay the market of another reign:

Your broad-way sons [199] would never be too nice

To close with Calvin, if he paid their price;

But, raised three steeples higher, would change their note,

And quit the cassock for the canting-coat.

Now, if you damn this censure, as too bold,

Judge by yourselves, and think not others sold.

Meantime, my sons accused, by fame's report,

Pay small attendance at the Lion's court,

Nor rise with early crowds, nor flatter late;

For silently they beg, who daily wait.

Preferment is bestowed, that comes unsought;

Attendance is a bribe, and then 'tis bought.

How they should speed, their fortune is untried;

For not to ask, is not to be denied.

For what they have, their God and king they bless,

And hope they should not murmur, had they less.

But if reduced subsistence to implore,

In common prudence they would pass your door;

Unpitied Hudibras, your champion friend,[200]

Has shown how far your charities extend.

This lasting verse shall on his tomb be read,

"He shamed you living, and upbraids you dead."

}

With odious atheist names you load your foes; }

Your liberal clergy why did I expose? }

It never fails in charities like those.[201] }

In climes where true religion is professed,

That imputation were no laughing jest;

But imprimatur, with a chaplain's name,

Is here sufficient licence to defame.[202]

}

What wonder is't that black detraction thrives? }

The homicide of names is less than lives; }

And yet the perjured murderer survives.— }

This said, she paused a little, and suppressed

The boiling indignation of her breast.

She knew the virtue of her blade, nor would

Pollute her satire with ignoble blood;

Her panting foe she saw before her eye,

And back she drew the shining weapon dry.

So when the generous Lion has in sight

His equal match, he rouses for the fight;

But when his foe lies prostrate on the plain,

He sheaths his paws, uncurls his angry mane,

And, pleased with bloodless honours of the day,

Walks over, and disdains the inglorious prey.

So James, if great with less we may compare,

Arrests his rolling thunder-bolts in air;

And grants ungrateful friends a lengthened space,

To implore the remnants of long-suffering grace.

This breathing-time the matron took; and then

Resumed the thread of her discourse again.—

Be vengeance wholly left to powers divine,

And let heaven judge betwixt your sons and mine:

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![203]

}

'Tis said with ease, but, oh, how hardly tried }

By haughty souls to human honour tied! }

O sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride! }

}

Down then, thou 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. }

Thus, she pursued, I discipline a son,

Whose unchecked fury to revenge would run;

He champs the bit, impatient of his loss,

And starts aside, and flounders at the cross.

Instruct him better, gracious God, to know,

As thine is vengeance, so forgiveness too;

That, suffering from ill tongues, he bears no more

Than what his sovereign bears, and what his Saviour bore.

It now remains for you to school your child,[204]

And ask why God's anointed he reviled;

A king and princess dead! did Shimei worse?

The curser's punishment should fright the curse;

Your son was warned, and wisely gave it o'er,

But he, who counselled him, has paid the score;[205]

The heavy malice could no higher tend,

But woe to him on whom the weights descend.

So to permitted ills the demon flies;

His rage is aimed at him who rules the skies:

Constrained to quit his cause, no succour found,

The foe discharges every tire around,

In clouds of smoke abandoning the fight,

But his own thundering peals proclaim his flight.

}

In Henry's change his charge as ill succeeds; }

To that long story little answer needs; }

Confront but Henry's words with Henry's deeds. }

Were space allowed, with ease it might be proved,

What springs his blessed reformation moved.

}

The dire effects appeared in open sight, }

Which from the cause he calls a distant flight, }

And yet no larger leap than from the sun to light. }

Now last your sons a double pæan sound,

A treatise of humility is found.

'Tis found, but better it had ne'er been sought,

Than thus in Protestant procession brought.

}

The famed original through Spain is known, }

Rodriguez' work, my celebrated son, }

Which yours, by ill-translating, made his own;[206] }

Concealed its author, and usurped the name,

The basest and ignoblest theft of fame.

My altars kindled first that living coal;

Restore, or practise better what you stole;

That virtue could this humble verse inspire,

'Tis all the restitution I require.—

Glad was the Panther that the charge was closed,

And none of all her favourite sons exposed;

for laws of arms permit each injured man,

To make himself a saver where he can.

Perhaps the plundered merchant cannot tell

The names of pirates in whose hands he fell;

But at the den of thieves he justly flies,

And every Algerine is lawful prize;

No private person in the foe's estate

Can plead exemption from the public fate.

Yet Christian laws allow not such redress;

Then let the greater supersede the less.

But let the abettors of the Panther's crime

Learn to make fairer wars another time.

}

Some characters may sure be found to write }

Among her sons; for 'tis no common sight, }

A spotted dam, and all her offspring white. }

The savage, though she saw her plea controuled,

Yet would not wholly seem to quit her hold,

But offered fairly to compound the strife,

And judge conversion by the convert's life.

'Tis true, she said, I think it somewhat strange,

So few should follow profitable change;

For present joys are more to flesh and blood,

Than a dull prospect of a distant good.

'Twas well alluded by a son of mine,

(I hope to quote him is not to purloin,)

Two magnets, heaven and earth, allure to bliss;

The larger loadstone that, the nearer this:

The weak attraction of the greater fails;

We nod a while, but neighbourhood prevails;

But when the greater proves the nearer too,

I wonder more your converts come so slow.

Methinks in those who firm with me remain,

It shows a nobler principle than gain.—

Your inference would be strong, the Hind replied,

If yours were in effect the suffering side;

Your clergy's sons their own in peace possess,

Nor are their prospects in reversion less.

My proselytes are struck with awful dread,

Your bloody comet-laws hang blazing o'er their head;

The respite they enjoy but only lent,

The best they have to hope, protracted punishment.[207]

Be judge yourself, if interest may prevail,

Which motives, yours or mine, will turn the scale.

}

While pride and pomp allure, and plenteous ease, }

That is, till man's predominant passions cease, }

Admire no longer at my slow increase. }

By education most have been misled;

So they believe, because they so were bred.

The priest continues what the nurse began,

And thus the child imposes on the man.

The rest I named before, nor need repeat;

But interest is the most prevailing cheat,

The sly seducer both of age and youth;

They study that, and think they study truth.

}

When interest fortifies an argument, }

Weak reason serves to gain the will's assent; }

For souls, already warped, receive an easy bent. }

Add long prescription of established laws,

And pique of honour to maintain a cause,

And shame of change, and fear of future ill,

And zeal, the blind conductor of the will;

}

And chief, among the still-mistaking crowd, }

The fame of teachers obstinate and proud, }

And, more than all, the private judge allowed; }

}

Disdain of fathers which the dance began, }

And last, uncertain whose the narrower span, }

The clown unread, and half-read gentleman.— }

To this the Panther, with a scornful smile;—

Yet still you travel with unwearied toil,

}

And range around the realm without controul, }

Among my sons for proselytes to prowl; }

And here and there you snap some silly soul. }

You hinted fears of future change in state;

Pray heaven you did not prophesy your fate!

}

Perhaps, you think your time of triumph near, }

But may mistake the season of the year; }

The Swallow's fortune gives you cause to fear.—[208] }

For charity, replied the matron, tell

What sad mischance those pretty birds befel.—

}

Nay, no mischance, the savage dame replied, }

But want of wit in their unerring guide, }

And eager haste, and gaudy hopes, and giddy pride. }

Yet, wishing timely warning may prevail,

Make you the moral, and I'll tell the tale.

The Swallow, privileged above the rest

Of all the birds, as man's familiar guest,

Pursues the sun, in summer brisk and bold,

But wisely shuns the persecuting cold;

Is well to chancels and to chimnies known,

Though 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone.

From hence she has been held of heavenly line,

Endued with particles of soul divine.

This merry chorister had long possessed

Her summer-seat, and feathered well her nest;

Till frowning skies began to change their cheer,

And time turned up the wrong side of the year;

The shading trees began the ground to strow

With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow.

Sad auguries of winter thence she drew,

Which by instinct, or prophecy, she knew;

When prudence warned her to remove betimes,

And seek a better heaven, and warmer climes.

Her sons were summoned on a steeple's height,

And, called in common council, vote a flight.

}

The day was named, the next that should be fair; }

All to the general rendezvous repair, }

They try their fluttering wings, and trust themselves in air. }

}

But whether upward to the moon they go, }

Or dream the winter out in caves below, }

Or hawk at flies elsewhere, concerns us not to know. }

}

Southwards you may be sure they bent their flight, }

And harboured in a hollow rock at night; }

Next morn they rose, and set up every sail;

The wind was fair, but blew a mackrel gale;

The sickly young sat shivering on the shore,

Abhorred salt-water never seen before.

And prayed their tender mothers to delay

The passage, and expect a fairer day.

With these the Martin readily concurred,

A church bigot, and church-believing bird;

}

Of little body, but of lofty mind, }

Round bellied, for a dignity designed, }

And much a dunce, as Martins are by kind; }

}

Yet often quoted canon-laws, and code, }

And fathers which he never understood; }

But little learning needs in noble blood. }

For, sooth to say, the Swallow brought him in,

Her household chaplain, and her next of kin;

In superstition silly to excess,

And casting schemes by planetary guess;

In fine, short-winged, unfit himself to fly,

His fear foretold foul weather in the sky.

Besides, a Raven from a withered oak,[209]

Left of their lodging, was observed to croak.

}

That omen liked him not; so his advice }

Was present safety, bought at any price; }

A seeming pious care, that covered cowardice. }

To strengthen this, he told a boding dream,

Of rising waters, and a troubled stream,

Sure signs of anguish, dangers, and distress,

With something more, not lawful to express:

By which he slily seemed to intimate

Some secret revelation of their fate.

For he concluded, once upon a time,

He found a leaf inscribed with sacred rhyme,

Whose antique characters did well denote

The Sibyl's hand of the Cumæan grot;

The mad divineress had plainly writ,

A time should come, but many ages yet,

}

In which, sinister destinies ordain, }

A dame should drown with all her feathered train, }

And seas from thence be called the Chelidonian main.[210] }

At this, some shook for fear; the more devout

Arose, and blessed themselves from head to foot.

'Tis true, some stagers of the wiser sort

Made all these idle wonderments their sport;

}

They said, their only danger was delay, }

And he, who heard what every fool could say, }

Would never fix his thought, but trim his time away. }

}

The passage yet was good; the wind, 'tis true, }

Was somewhat high, but that was nothing new, }

No more than usual equinoxes blew. }

}

The sun, already from the Scales declined, }

Gave little hopes of better days behind, }

But change from bad to worse, of weather and of wind. }

}

Nor need they fear the dampness of the sky }

Should flag their wings, and hinder them to fly, }

'Twas only water thrown on sails too dry. }

But, least of all, philosophy presumes

Of truth in dreams, from melancholy fumes;

Perhaps the Martin, housed in holy ground,

Might think of ghosts, that walk their midnight round,

Till grosser atoms, tumbling in the stream

Of fancy, madly met, and clubbed into a dream:

As little weight his vain presages bear,

Of ill effect to such alone who fear;

Most prophecies are of a piece with these,

Each Nostradamus can foretel with ease:

Not naming persons, and confounding times,

One casual truth supports a thousand lying rhymes.

The advice was true; but fear had seized the most,

And all good counsel is on cowards lost.

The question crudely put to shun delay,

'Twas carried by the major part to stay.

His point thus gained, Sir Martin dated thence

His power, and from a priest became a prince.

}

He ordered all things with a busy care, }

And cells and refectories did prepare, }

And large provisions laid of winter fare; }

}

But, now and then, let fall a word or two, }

Of hope, that heaven some miracle might show, }

And for their sakes, the sun should backward go; }

Against the laws of nature upward climb,

And, mounted on the Ram, renew the prime;

For which two proofs in sacred story lay,

Of Ahaz' dial, and of Joshua's day.

In expectation of such times as these,

A chapel housed them, truly called of ease;

For Martin much devotion did not ask;

They prayed sometimes, and that was all their task.

It happened, as beyond the reach of wit

Blind prophecies may have a lucky hit,

That this accomplished, or at least in part,

Gave great repute to their new Merlin's art.

}

Some Swifts,[211] the giants of the Swallow kind, }

Large limbed, stout-hearted, but of stupid mind, }

(For Swisses, or for Gibeonites designed, }

These lubbers, peeping through a broken pane,

To suck fresh air, surveyed the neighbouring plain,

And saw, but scarcely could believe their eyes,

New blossoms flourish, and new flowers arise;

As God had been abroad, and, walking there,

Had left his footsteps, and reformed the year.

}

The sunny hills from far were seen to glow }

With glittering beams, and in the meads below }

The burnished brooks appeared with liquid gold to flow. }

At last they heard the foolish Cuckow sing,

Whose note proclaimed the holiday of spring.

No longer doubting, all prepare to fly,

And repossess their patrimonial sky.

}

The priest before them did his wings display; }

And that good omens might attend their way, }

As luck would have it, 'twas St Martin's day. }

Who but the Swallow now triumphs alone?

The canopy of heaven is all her own;

Her youthful offspring to their haunts repair,

And glide along in glades, and skim in air,

And dip for insects in the purling springs,

And stoop on rivers to refresh their wings.

Their mothers think a fair provision made,

That every son can live upon his trade,

And, now the careful charge is off their hands,

Look out for husbands, and new nuptial bands.

}

The youthful widow longs to be supplied; }

But first the lover is by lawyers tied, }

To settle jointure-chimnies on the bride. }

So thick they couple in so short a space,

That Martin's marriage-offerings rise apace.

Their ancient houses, running to decay,

Are furbished up, and cemented with clay:

They teem already; store of eggs are laid,

And brooding mothers call Lucina's aid.

}

Fame spreads the news, and foreign fowls appear, }

In flocks, to greet the new returning year, }

To bless the founder, and partake the cheer. }

And now 'twas time, so fast their numbers rise,

To plant abroad and people colonies.

The youth drawn forth, as Martin had desired,

(For so their cruel destiny required,)

Were sent far off on an ill-fated day;

The rest would needs conduct them on their way,

And Martin went, because he feared alone to stay.

So long they flew with inconsiderate haste,

That now their afternoon began to waste;

And, what was ominous, that very morn

The sun was entered into Capricorn;

Which, by their bad astronomer's account,

That week the Virgin balance should remount.

An infant moon eclipsed him in his way,

And hid the small remainders of his day.

The crowd, amazed, pursued no certain mark,

But birds met birds, and jostled in the dark.[212]

Few mind the public, in a panic fright,

And fear increased the horror of the night.

Night came, but unattended with repose;

Alone she came, no sleep their eyes to close;

Alone, and black she came; no friendly stars arose.

What should they do, beset with dangers round,

No neighbouring dorp,[213] no lodging to be found,

But bleaky plains, and bare, unhospitable ground?

The latter brood, who just began to fly,

Sick-feathered, and unpractised in the sky,

For succour to their helpless mother call:

She spread her wings; some few beneath them crawl;

She spread them wider yet, but could not cover all.

To augment their woes, the winds began to move,

Debate in air for empty fields above,

Till Boreas got the skies, and poured amain

His rattling hailstones, mixed with snow and rain.

}

The joyless morning late arose, and found }

A dreadful desolation reign around, }

Some buried in the snow, some frozen to the ground. }

The rest were struggling still with death, and lay

The Crows and Ravens rights an undefended prey:

Excepting Martin's race; for they and he

Had gained the shelter of a hollow tree;

}

But, soon discovered by a sturdy clown, }

He headed all the rabble of a town, }

And finished them with bats, or polled them down. }

}

Martin himself was caught alive, and tried }

For treasonous crimes, because the laws provide }

No Martin there in winter shall abide. }

High on an oak, which never leaf shall bear,

He breathed his last, exposed to open air;

And there his corpse unblessed is hanging still,

To show the change of winds with his prophetic bill.—[214]

The patience of the Hind did almost fail,

For well she marked the malice of the tale;

}

Which ribbald art their church to Luther owes; }

In malice it began, by malice grows; }

He sowed the serpent's teeth, an iron harvest rose. }

But most in Martin's character and fate,

She saw her slandered sons, the Panther's hate,

The people's rage, the persecuting state:[215]

Then said, I take the advice in friendly part;

You clear your conscience, or at least your heart.

Perhaps you failed in your foreseeing skill,

For Swallows are unlucky birds to kill:

As for my sons, the family is blessed,

Whose every child is equal to the rest;

No church reformed can boast a blameless line,

Such Martins build in yours, and more than mine;

Or else an old fanatic author lies,

Who summed their scandals up by centuries.[216]

But through your parable I plainly see

The bloody laws, the crowd's barbarity;

The sunshine, that offends the purblind sight,

Had some their wishes, it would soon be night.[217]

Mistake me not; the charge concerns not you;

Your sons are malecontents, but yet are true,

As far as non-resistance makes them so;

But that's a word of neutral sense, you know,

A passive term, which no relief will bring,

But trims betwixt a rebel and a king.—

}

Rest well assured, the Pardelis replied, }

My sons would all support the regal side, }

Though heaven forbid the cause by battle should be tried.— }

The matron answered with a loud Amen,

And thus pursued her arguments again:—

}

If, as you say, and as I hope no less, }

Your sons will practise what yourselves profess, }

What angry power prevents our present peace? }

The Lion, studious of our common good,

Desires (and kings' desires are ill withstood)

}

To join our nations in a lasting love; }

The bars betwixt are easy to remove, }

For sanguinary laws were never made above.[217a] }

If you condemn that prince of tyranny,

Whose mandate forced your Gallic friends to fly,[218]

}

Make not a worse example of your own, }

Or cease to rail at causeless rigour shown, }

And let the guiltless person throw the stone. }

His blunted sword your suffering brotherhood

Have seldom felt; he stops it short of blood:

But you have ground the persecuting knife,

And set it to a razor-edge on life.

}

Cursed be the wit, which cruelty refines, }

Or to his father's rod the scorpion joins! }

Your finger is more gross than the great monarch's loins. }

But you, perhaps, remove that bloody note,

And stick it on the first reformers' coat.

Oh let their crime in long oblivion sleep;

'Twas theirs indeed to make, 'tis yours to keep!

Unjust, or just, is all the question now;

'Tis plain, that, not repealing, you allow.

To name the Test would put you in a rage;

You charge not that on any former age,

But smile to think how innocent you stand,

Armed by a weapon put into your hand.

Yet still remember, that you wield a sword,

Forged by your foes against your sovereign lord;

Designed to hew the imperial cedar down,

Defraud succession, and dis-heir the crown.[219]

To abhor the makers, and their laws approve,

Is to hate traitors, and the treason love.

What means it else, which now your children say,

We made it not, nor will we take away?

}

Suppose some great oppressor had, by slight }

Of law, disseised your brother of his right, }

Your common sire surrendering in a fright; }

Would you to that unrighteous title stand,

Left by the villain's will to heir the land?

}

More just was Judas, who his Saviour sold; }

The sacrilegious bribe he could not hold, }

Nor hang in peace, before he rendered back the gold. }

What more could you have done, than now you do,

Had Oates and Bedlow and their plot been true?

}

Some specious reasons for those wrongs were found; }

The dire magicians threw their mists around, }

And wise men walked as on enchanted ground. }

}

But now when time has made the imposture plain, }

(Late though he followed truth, and limping held her train, }

What new delusion charms your cheated eyes again? }

The painted harlot might a while bewitch,

But why the hag uncased, and all obscene with itch?[220]

The first reformers were a modest race;

Our peers possessed in peace their native place,

And when rebellious arms o'erturned the state,

They suffered only in the common fate;

But now the sovereign mounts the regal chair,

And mitred seats are full, yet David's bench is bare.[221]

Your answer is, they were not dispossest;

They need but rub their mettle on the Test

To prove their ore;—'twere well if gold alone

Were touched and tried on your discerning stone;

But that unfaithful test unfound will pass

The dross of Atheists, and sectarian brass;

As if the experiment were made to hold

For base production, and reject the gold.

Thus men ungodded may to places rise,

And sects may be preferred without disguise;

No danger to the church or state from these,

The Papist only has his writ of ease.

No gainful office gives him the pretence

To grind the subject, or defraud the prince.

Wrong conscience, or no conscience, may deserve

To thrive, but ours alone is privileged to starve.

Still thank yourselves, you cry; your noble race

We banish not, but they forsake the place;

Our doors are open:—true, but ere they come,

You toss your 'censing test, and fume the room;

As if 'twere Toby's rival to expel,

And fright the fiend who could not bear the smell.[222]

}

To this the Panther sharply had replied, }

But having gained a verdict on her side, }

She wisely gave the loser leave to chide; }

}

Well satisfied to have the but and peace,[223] }

And for the plaintiff's cause she cared the less, }

Because she sued in forma pauperis; }

Yet thought it decent something should be said,

For secret guilt by silence is betrayed;

So neither granted all, nor much denied,

But answered with a yawning kind of pride:

Methinks such terms of proffered peace you bring,

As once Æneas to the Italian king:[224]

}

By long possession all the land is mine; }

You strangers come with your intruding line, }

To share my sceptre, which you call to join. }

You plead like him an ancient pedigree,

And claim a peaceful seat by fate's decree.

In ready pomp your sacrificer stands,

To unite the Trojan and the Latin bands;

And, that the league more firmly may be tied,

Demand the fair Lavinia for your bride.

Thus plausibly you veil the intended wrong,

But still you bring your exiled gods along;

And will endeavour, in succeeding space,

Those household puppets on our hearths to place.

Perhaps some barbarous laws have been preferred;

I spake against the Test, but was not heard.

}

These to rescind, and peerage to restore, }

My gracious sovereign would my vote implore; }

I owe him much, but owe my conscience more.— }

Conscience is then your plea, replied the dame,

Which, well-informed, will ever be the same.

But yours is much of the camelion hue,

To change the dye with every distant view.

When first the Lion sat with awful sway,

Your conscience taught your duty to obey:[225]

He might have had your statutes and your Test;

No conscience but of subjects was professed.

He found your temper, and no farther tried,

But on that broken reed, your church, relied.

}

In vain the sects essayed their utmost art, }

With offered treasure to espouse their part; }

Their treasures were a bribe too mean to move his heart. }

But when, by long experience, you had proved,

How far he could forgive, how well he loved;

(A goodness that excelled his godlike race,

And only short of heaven's unbounded grace;

A flood of mercy that o'erflowed our isle,

Calm in the rise, and fruitful as the Nile,)

Forgetting whence your Egypt was supplied,

You thought your sovereign bound to send the tide;

Nor upward looked on that immortal spring,

But vainly deemed, he durst not be a king.

Then Conscience, unrestrained by fear, began

To stretch her limits, and extend the span;

Did his indulgence as her gift dispose,

And made a wise alliance with her foes.[226]

}

Can Conscience own the associating name, }

And raise no blushes to conceal her shame? }

For sure she has been thought a bashful dame. }

}

But if the cause by battle should be tried, }

You grant she must espouse the regal side; }

O Proteus conscience, never to be tied! }

What Phœbus from the Tripod shall disclose,

Which are, in last resort, your friends or foes?

Homer, who learned the language of the sky,

The seeming Gordian knot would soon untie;

Immortal powers the term of Conscience know,[227]

But Interest is her name with men below.—

Conscience or Interest be't, or both in one,

(The Panther answered in a surly tone;)

The first commands me to maintain the crown,

The last forbids to throw my barriers down.

Our penal laws no sons of yours admit,

Our Test excludes your tribe from benefit.

These are my banks your ocean to withstand,

Which, proudly rising, overlooks the land,

And, once let in, with unresisted sway,

Would sweep the pastors and their flocks away.

Think not my judgment leads me to comply

With laws unjust, but hard necessity:

Imperious need, which cannot be withstood,

Makes ill authentic, for a greater good.

Possess your soul with patience, and attend;

A more auspicious planet may ascend;[228]

Good fortune may present some happier time,

With means to cancel my unwilling crime;

(Unwilling, witness all ye powers above!)

To mend my errors, and redeem your love:

That little space you safely may allow;

Your all-dispensing power protects you now.[229]

Hold, said the Hind, 'tis needless to explain;

You would postpone me to another reign;

Till when, you are content to be unjust:

Your part is to possess, and mine to trust;

A fair exchange proposed, of future chance

For present profit and inheritance.

Few words will serve to finish our dispute;

Who will not now repeal, would persecute.

To ripen green revenge your hopes attend,

Wishing that happier planet would ascend.[230]

}

For shame, let Conscience be your plea no more; }

To will hereafter, proves she might before; }

But she's a bawd to gain, and holds the door. }

Your care about your banks infers a fear [231]

Of threatening floods and inundations near;

If so, a just reprise would only be

Of what the land usurped upon the sea;

And all your jealousies but serve to show,

Your ground is, like your neighbour-nation, low.

To intrench in what you grant unrighteous laws,

Is to distrust the justice of your cause;

And argues, that the true religion lies

In those weak adversaries you despise.

Tyrannic force is that which least you fear;

The sound is frightful in a Christian's ear:

Avert it, heaven! nor let that plague be sent

To us from the dispeopled continent.

But piety commands me to refrain;

Those prayers are needless in this monarch's reign.

}

Behold how he protects your friends oppressed, }

Receives the banished, succours the distressed![232] }

Behold, for you may read an honest open breast. }

}

He stands in day-light, and disdains to hide }

An act, to which by honour he is tied, }

A generous, laudable, and kingly pride. }

Your Test he would repeal, his peers restore;

This when he says he means, he means no more.

}

Well, said the Panther, I believe him just, }

And yet—— }

—And yet, 'tis but because you must; }

You would be trusted, but you would not trust.—

The Hind thus briefly; and disdained to enlarge

On power of kings, and their superior charge,

}

As heaven's trustees before the people's choice; }

Though sure the Panther did not much rejoice }

To hear those echoes given of her once loyal voice. }

The matron wooed her kindness to the last,

But could not win; her hour of grace was past.

Whom, thus persisting, when she could not bring

To leave the Wolf, and to believe her king,

She gave her up, and fairly wished her joy

Of her late treaty with her new ally:

Which well she hoped would more successful prove,

Than was the Pigeon's and the Buzzard's love.

The Panther asked, what concord there could be

Betwixt two kinds whose natures disagree?

The dame replied: 'Tis sung in every street,

The common chat of gossips when they meet;

But, since unheard by you, 'tis worth your while

To take a wholesome tale, though told in homely style.

A plain good man, whose name is understood,[233]

(So few deserve the name of plain and good,)

Of three fair lineal lordships stood possessed,

And lived, as reason was, upon the best.

Inured to hardships from his early youth,

Much had he done and suffered for his truth:

}

At land and sea, in many a doubtful fight, }

Was never known a more adventurous knight, }

Who oftener drew his sword, and always for the right. }

As fortune would, (his fortune came, though late,)

He took possession of his just estate;

Nor racked his tenants with increase of rent,

Nor lived too sparing, nor too largely spent,

But overlooked his hinds; their pay was just,

And ready, for he scorned to go on trust:

Slow to resolve, but in performance quick;

So true, that he was awkward at a trick.

}

For little souls on little shifts rely, }

And cowards arts of mean expedients try; }

The noble mind will dare do any thing but lie. }

False friends, his deadliest foes, could find no way,

But shows of honest bluntness, to betray;

That unsuspected plainness he believed;

He looked into himself, and was deceived.

Some lucky planet sure attends his birth,

Or heaven would make a miracle on earth;

For prosperous honesty is seldom seen

To bear so dead a weight, and yet to win.

It looks as fate with nature's law would strive,

To show plain-dealing once an age may thrive;

And, when so tough a frame she could not bend,

Exceeded her commission, to befriend.

This grateful man, as heaven increased his store,

Gave God again, and daily fed his poor.

His house with all convenience was purveyed;

The rest he found, but raised the fabric where he prayed;[234]

And in that sacred place his beauteous wife

Employed her happiest hours of holy life.

Nor did their alms extend to those alone,

Whom common faith more strictly made their own;

A sort of Doves [235] were housed too near their hall,

Who cross the proverb, and abound with gall.

Though some, 'tis true, are passively inclined,

The greater part degenerate from their kind;

Voracious birds, that hotly bill and breed,

And largely drink, because on salt they feed.

}

Small gain from them their bounteous owner draws; }

Yet, bound by promise, he supports their cause, }

As corporations privileged by laws. }

That house, which harbour to their kind affords,

Was built long since, God knows, for better birds;

}

But fluttering there, they nestle near the throne, }

And lodge in habitations not their own, }

By their high crops and corny gizzards known. }

Like Harpies, they could scent a plenteous board,

Then to be sure they never failed their lord:

The rest was form, and bare attendance paid;

They drunk, and eat, and grudgingly obeyed.

The more they fed, they ravened still the more;

They drained from Dan, and left Beersheba poor.

All this they had by law, and none repined;

The preference was but due to Levi's kind:

But when some lay-preferment fell by chance,

The Gourmands made it their inheritance.

When once possessed, they never quit their claim,

For then 'tis sanctified to heaven's high name;

And hallowed thus, they cannot give consent,

The gift should be profaned by worldly management.

Their flesh was never to the table served,

Though 'tis not thence inferred the birds were starved;

But that their master did not like the food,

As rank, and breeding melancholy blood.

Nor did it with his gracious nature suit,

E'en though they were not doves, to persecute:

Yet he refused, (nor could they take offence,)

Their glutton kind should teach him abstinence.

Nor consecrated grain their wheat he thought,

Which, new from treading, in their bills they brought;

But left his hinds each in his private power,

That those who like the bran might leave the flower.

He for himself, and not for others, chose,

Nor would he be imposed on, nor impose;

}

But in their faces his devotion paid, }

And sacrifice with solemn rites was made, }

And sacred incense on his altars laid. }

Besides these jolly birds, whose corpse impure

Repaid their commons with their salt manure,

Another farm he had behind his house,

Not overstocked, but barely for his use;

Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed,

And from his pious hands received their bread.[236]

Our pampered Pigeons, with malignant eyes,

Beheld these inmates, and their nurseries;

Though hard their fare, at evening, and at morn,

(A cruise of water and an ear of corn,)

Yet still they grudged that modicum, and thought

A sheaf in every single grain was brought.

Fain would they filch that little food away,

While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey;

And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall,

The bird that warned St Peter of his fall;[237]

That he should raise his mitred crest on high,

And clap his wings, and call his family

To sacred rites; and vex the Ethereal powers

With midnight mattins at uncivil hours;

Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest,

Just in the sweetness of their morning rest.

Beast of a bird, supinely when he might

Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light!

What if his dull forefathers used that cry,

Could he not let a bad example die?

The world was fallen into an easier way;

This age knew better than to fast and pray.

Good sense in sacred worship would appear,

So to begin, as they might end the year.

Such feats in former times had wrought the falls

Of crowing chanticleers in cloistered walls.

}

Expelled for this, and for their lands, they fled; }

And sister Partlet, with her hooded head,[238] }

Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed. }

The way to win the restiff world to God,

Was to lay by the disciplining rod,

Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer;

Religion frights us with a mein severe.

'Tis prudence to reform her into ease,

And put her in undress, to make her please;

A lively faith will bear aloft the mind,

And leave the luggage of good works behind.

Such doctrines in the Pigeon-house were taught;

You need not ask how wondrously they wrought;

But sure the common cry was all for these,

Whose life and precepts both encouraged ease.

Yet fearing those alluring baits might fail,

And holy deeds o'er all their arts prevail,

(For vice, though frontless, and of hardened face,

Is daunted at the sight of awful grace,)

}

An hideous figure of their foes they drew, }

Nor lines, nor looks, nor shades, nor colours true; }

And this grotesque design exposed to public view.[239] }

}

One would have thought it some Egyptian piece, }

With garden-gods, and barking deities, }

More thick than Ptolemy has stuck the skies. }

All so perverse a draught, so far unlike,

It was no libel where it meant to strike.

Yet still the daubing pleased, and great and small,

To view the monster, crowded Pigeon-hall.

There Chanticleer was drawn upon his knees,

Adorning shrines, and stocks of sainted trees;[240]

And by him, a mishapen, ugly race,

The curse of God was seen on every face:

No Holland emblem could that malice mend,[241]

But still the worse the look, the fitter for a fiend.

The master of the farm, displeased to find

So much of rancour in so mild a kind,

Enquired into the cause, and came to know,

The passive church had struck the foremost blow;

}

With groundless fears, and jealousies possest, }

As if this troublesome intruding guest }

Would drive the birds of Venus [242] from their nest. }

A deed his inborn equity abhorred;

But interest will not trust, though God should plight his word.

A law, the source of many future harms,

Had banished all the poultry from the farms;

With loss of life, if any should be found

To crow or peck on this forbidden ground.

That bloody statute chiefly was designed

For Chanticleer the white, of clergy kind;[243]

But after-malice did not long forget

The lay that wore the robe and coronet.[244]

For them, for their inferiors and allies,

Their foes a deadly Shibboleth devise;

}

By which unrighteously it was decreed, }

That none to trust, or profit, should succeed, }

Who would not swallow first a poisonous wicked weed; }

Or that, to which old Socrates was cursed,[245]

Or henbane juice to swell them till they burst.

}

The patron, as in reason, thought it hard }

To see this inquisition in his yard, }

By which the sovereign was of subjects' use debarred. }

All gentle means he tried, which might withdraw

The effects of so unnatural a law;

But still the dove-house obstinately stood

Deaf to their own, and to their neighbours' good;

And which was worse, if any worse could be,

Repented of their boasted loyalty;

Now made the champions of a cruel cause,

And drunk with fumes of popular applause:

For those whom God to ruin has designed,

He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.[246]

New doubts indeed they daily strove to raise,

Suggested dangers, interposed delays,

And emissary Pigeons had in store,

Such as the Meccan prophet used of yore,[247]

To whisper counsels in their patron's ear,

And veiled their false advice with zealous fear.

The master smiled to see them work in vain,

To wear him out, and make an idle reign:

He saw, but suffered their protractive arts,

And strove by mildness to reduce their hearts;

}

But they abused that grace to make allies, }

And fondly closed with former enemies; }

For fools are doubly fools, endeavouring to be wise. }

After a grave consult what course were best,

One, more mature in folly than the rest,

Stood up, and told them, with his head aside,

That desperate cures must be to desperate ills applied:

And therefore, since their main impending fear

Was from the increasing race of Chanticleer,

Some potent bird of prey they ought to find,

A foe professed to him, and all his kind:

Some hagard Hawk, who had her eyry nigh,

Well pounced to fasten, and well winged to fly;

One they might trust, their common wrongs to wreak.

The Musquet and the Coystrel were too weak,

Too fierce the Falcon; but, above the rest,

The noble Buzzard [248] ever pleased me best:

Of small renown, 'tis true; for, not to lie,

We call him but a Hawk by courtesy.

I know he hates the Pigeon-house and Farm,

And more, in time of war, has done us harm:

But all his hate on trivial points depends;

Give up our forms, and we shall soon be friends.

For Pigeons' flesh he seems not much to care;

Cram'd Chickens are a more delicious fare.

On this high potentate, without delay,

I wish you would confer the sovereign sway;

Petition him to accept the government,

And let a splendid embassy be sent.

This pithy speech prevailed, and all agreed,

Old enmities forgot, the Buzzard should succeed.

}

Their welcome suit was granted, soon as heard, }

His lodgings furnished, and a train prepared, }

With B's upon their breast, appointed for his guard. }

He came, and, crowned with great solemnity,

God save king Buzzard! was the general cry.

A portly prince, and goodly to the sight,

He seemed a son of Anach for his height:

Like those whom stature did to crowns prefer,

Black-browed, and bluff, like Homer's Jupiter;

Broad-backed, and brawny-built for love's delight,

A prophet formed to make a female proselyte;[249]

A theologue more by need than genial bent,

By breeding sharp, by nature confident.

Interest in all his actions was discerned;

More learned than honest, more a wit than learned;

Or forced by fear, or by his profit led,

Or both conjoined, his native clime he fled;

But brought the virtues of his heaven along,

A fair behaviour, and a fluent tongue.

And yet with all his arts he could not thrive,

The most unlucky parasite alive;

Loud praises to prepare his paths he sent,

And then himself pursued his compliment;

But by reverse of fortune chased away,

His gifts no longer than their author stay;

He shakes the dust against the ungrateful race,

And leaves the stench of ordures in the place.

Oft has he flattered and blasphemed the same;

For in his rage he spares no sovereign's name:

The hero and the tyrant change their style,

By the same measure that they frown or smile.[250]

When well received by hospitable foes,

The kindness he returns, is to expose;

}

For courtesies, though undeserved and great, }

No gratitude in felon-minds beget; }

As tribute to his wit, the churl receives the treat. }

}

His praise of foes is venomously nice; }

So touched, it turns a virtue to a vice;[251] }

"A Greek, and bountiful, forewarns us twice."[252] }

Seven sacraments he wisely does disown,

Because he knows confession stands for one;

Where sins to sacred silence are conveyed,

And not for fear, or love, to be betrayed:

But he, uncalled, his patron to controul,

Divulged the secret whispers of his soul;

Stood forth the accusing Satan of his crimes,

And offered to the Moloch of the times.[253]

Prompt to assail, and careless of defence,

Invulnerable in his impudence,

He dares the world; and, eager of a name,

He thrusts about, and jostles into fame.

Frontless, and satire-proof, he scowers the streets,

And runs an Indian-muck at all he meets.[254]

}

So fond of loud report, that, not to miss }

Of being known, (his last and utmost bliss,) }

He rather would be known for what he is. }

}

Such was, and is, the Captain of the Test,[255] }

Though half his virtues are not here expressed; }

The modesty of fame conceals the rest. }

The spleenful Pigeons never could create

A prince more proper to revenge their hate;

Indeed, more proper to revenge, than save;

A king, whom in his wrath the Almighty gave:

}

For all the grace the landlord had allowed, }

But made the Buzzard and the Pigeons proud; }

Gave time to fix their friends, and to seduce the crowd. }

}

They long their fellow-subjects to inthral, }

Their patron's promise into question call,[256] }

And vainly think he meant to make them lords of all. }

False fears their leaders failed not to suggest,

As if the Doves were to be dispossessed;

Nor sighs, nor groans, nor goggling eyes did want,

For now the Pigeons too had learned to cant.

The house of prayer is stocked with large increase;

Nor doors, nor windows, can contain the press,

For birds of every feather fill the abode;

E'en atheists out of envy own a God,

And, reeking from the stews, adulterers come,

Like Goths and Vandals to demolish Rome.

That conscience, which to all their crimes was mute,

Now calls aloud, and cries to persecute:

No rigour of the laws to be released,

And much the less, because it was their Lord's request;

They thought it great their sovereign to controul,

And named their pride, nobility of soul.

'Tis true, the Pigeons, and their prince elect,

Were short of power, their purpose to effect;

But with their quills did all the hurt they could,

And cuff'd the tender Chickens from their food:

}

And much the Buzzard in their cause did stir, }

Though naming not the patron, to infer, }

With all respect, he was a gross idolater.[257] }

But when the imperial owner did espy,

That thus they turned his grace to villainy,

}

Not suffering wrath to discompose his mind, }

He strove a temper for the extremes to find, }

So to be just, as he might still be kind; }

Then, all maturely weighed, pronounced a doom

Of sacred strength for every age to come.[258]

By this the Doves their wealth and state possess,

No rights infringed, but license to oppress:

Such power have they as factious lawyers long

To crowns ascribed, that kings can do no wrong.

But since his own domestic birds have tried

The dire effects of their destructive pride,

}

He deems that proof a measure to the rest, }

Concluding well within his kingly breast, }

His fowls of nature too unjustly were opprest.[259] }

}

He therefore makes all birds of every sect }

Free of his farm, with promise to respect }

Their several kinds alike, and equally protect. }

}

His gracious edict the same franchise yields }

To all the wild increase of woods and fields, }

And who in rocks aloof, and who in steeples builds: }

To Crows the like impartial grace affords,

And Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds;

Secured with ample privilege to feed,

Each has his district, and his bounds decreed;

Combined in common interest with his own,

But not to pass the Pigeons' Rubicon.

}

Here ends the reign of this pretended Dove; }

All prophecies accomplished from above, }

For Shiloh comes the sceptre to remove. }

Reduced from her imperial high abode,

Like Dionysius to a private rod,[260]

}

The passive church, that with pretended grace }

Did her distinctive mark in duty place, }

Now touched, reviles her Maker to his face. }

}

What after happened is not hard to guess; }

The small beginnings had a large increase, }

And arts and wealth succeed the secret spoils of peace. }

'Tis said, the Doves repented, though too late,

Become the smiths of their own foolish fate:[261]

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.[262]

The Buzzard, not content with equal place,

Invites the feathered Nimrods of his race,

To hide the thinness of their flock from sight,

And all together make a seeming goodly flight:

But each have separate interests of their own;

Two Czars are one too many for a throne.

Nor can the usurper long abstain from food;

Already he has tasted Pigeon's blood,

And may be tempted to his former fare,[263]

When this indulgent lord shall late to heaven repair.

Bare benting times, and moulting months may come,

When, lagging late, they cannot reach their home;

Or rent in schism, (for so their fate decrees,)

Like the tumultuous college of the bees,

They fight their quarrel, by themselves opprest,

The tyrant smiles below, and waits the falling feast.—

Thus did the gentle Hind her fable end,

Nor would the Panther blame it, nor commend;

But, with affected yawnings at the close,

Seemed to require her natural repose;

For now the streaky light began to peep,

And setting stars admonished both to sleep.

The Dame withdrew, and, wishing to her guest

The peace of heaven, betook herself to rest:

Ten thousand angels on her slumbers wait,

With glorious visions of her future state.

NOTES
ON
THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.
PART III.

And mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,

Has sharply blamed a British Lioness;

That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,

Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.—P. [197].

The poet, in the beginning of this canto, anticipates the censure of those who might blame him for introducing into his fables animals not natives of Britain, where the scene was laid. He vindicates himself by the example of Æsop and Spenser. The latter, in "Mother Hubbard's Tale," exhibits at length the various arts by which, in his time, obscure and infamous characters rose to eminence in church and state. This is illustrated by the parable of an Ape and a Fox, who insinuate themselves into various situations, and play the knaves in all. At length,

Lo, where they spied, how, in a gloomy glade,

The Lion, sleeping, lay in secret shade;

His crown and sceptre lying him beside,

And having doft for heat his dreadful hide.

The adventurers possess themselves of the royal spoils, with which the Ape is arrayed; who forthwith takes upon himself the dignity of the monarch of the beasts, and, by the counsels of the Fox, commits every species of oppression, until Jove, incensed at the disorders which his tyranny had introduced, sends Mercury to awaken the Lion from his slumber:

Arise! said Mercury, thou sluggish beast,

That here liest senseless, like the corpse deceast;

The whilst thy kingdom from thy head is rent,

And thy throne royal with dishonour blent.

The Lion rouses himself, hastens to court, and avenges himself of the usurpers.—There is no doubt, that, under this allegory, Spenser meant to represent the exorbitant power of Lord Burleigh; and he afterwards complains, that his verse occasioned his falling into a "mighty peer's displeasure." The Lion, therefore, whose negligence is upbraided by Mercury, was Queen Elizabeth. Dryden calls her,

The queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep;

because the tumultuous pope-burnings of 1680 and 1681 were solemnized on Queen Elizabeth's night. The poet had probably, since his change of religion, laid aside much of the hereditary respect with which most Englishmen regard Queen Bess; for, in the pamphlets of the Romanists, she is branded as "a known bastard, who raised this prelatic protestancy, called the church of England, as a prop to supply the weakness of her title."[264]

Spenser's authority is only appealed to by Dryden as justifying the introduction of lions and other foreign animals into a British fable. But I observed in the introduction, that it also furnishes authority, at least example, for those aberrations from the character and attributes of his brute actors, with which the critics taxed Dryden; for nothing in "The Hind and the Panther" can be more inconsistent with the natural quality of such animals, than the circumstance of a lion, or any other creature, going to sleep without his skin, on account of the sultry weather.

You know my doctrine, and I need not say

I will not, but I cannot, disobey.

On this firm principle I ever stood;

He of my sons, who fails to make it good,

By one rebellious act renounces to my blood.—P. [202].

The memorable judgment and decree of the university of Oxford, passed in the Convocation 21st July, 1683, condemns, as heretical, all works which teach or infer the lawfulness of resistance to lawful governors, even when they become tyrants, or in case of persecution for religion, or infringement on the laws of the country, or, in short, in any case whatever; and after the various authorities for these and other tenets have been given and denounced as false, seditious, heretical, and impious, the decree concludes with the following injunctions:

"Lastly, we command and strictly enjoin all and singular readers, tutors, catechists, and others, to whom the care and trust of institution of youth is committed, that they diligently instruct and ground their scholars in that most necessary doctrine, which in a manner is the badge and character of the church of England, of submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well: Teaching, that this submission and obedience is to be clear, absolute, and without exception of any state or order of men."

}

Your sons of latitude, that court your grace, }

Though most resembling you in form and face, }

Are far the worst of your pretended race. }

And, but I blush your honesty to blot,

Pray God you prove them lawfully begot!

For in some Popish libels I have read,

The Wolf has been too busy in your bed.—P. [202].

During the latter years of the reign of Charles the Second, the dissensions of the state began to creep into the church. By far the greater part of the clergy, influenced by the ancient union of church and king, were steady in their adherence to the court interest. But a party began to appear, who were distinguished from their brethren by the name of Moderate Divines, which they assumed to themselves, and by that of Latitudinarians, which the high churchmen conferred upon them. The chief amongst these were Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Burnet. They distinguished themselves by a less violent ardour for the ceremonies, and even the government, of the church; for all those particulars, in short, by which she is distinguished from other Protestant congregations. Stillingfleet carried these condescensions so far, as to admit in his tract, called Irenicum, that, although the original church was settled in a constitution of bishops, priests, and deacons, yet as the apostles made no positive law upon this subject, it remained free to every Christian congregation to alter or to retain that form of church government. In conformity with this opinion, he, in conjunction with Tillotson and others, laid a plan for an accommodation with the Presbyterians, in 1668; and, in order to this comprehension, he was willing to have made such sacrifices in the point of ordination, &c. that the House of Commons took the alarm, and passed a vote, prohibiting even the introduction of a bill for such a purpose. As, on the one hand, the tenets of the moderate clergy approximated those of the Calvinists; so, on the other, their antipathy and opposition to the church of Rome was more deeply rooted, in proportion to the slighter value which they attached to the particulars in which that of England resembled her. It flowed naturally from this indulgence to the Dissenters, and detestation of the Romanists, that several of the moderate clergy participated deeply in the terrors excited by the Roman Catholic plot, and looked with a favourable eye on the bill which proposed to exclude the Duke of York from the throne as a professor of that obnoxious religion. Being thus, as it were, an opposition party, it cannot be supposed that the low church divines united cordially with their high-flying brethren in renouncing the right of resisting oppression, or in professing passive obedience to the royal will. They were of opinion, that there was a mutual compact between the king and subject, and that acts of tyranny, on the part of the former, absolved the latter from his allegiance. This was particularly inculcated by the reverend Samuel Johnson (See Vol. IX. p. 369.) in "Julian the Apostate," and other writings which were condemned by the Oxford decree. As the dangers attending the church, from the measures of King James, became more obvious, and the alternative of resistance or destruction became an approaching crisis, the low church party acquired numbers and strength from those who thought it better at once to hold and assert the lawfulness of opposition to tyranny, than to make professions of obedience beyond the power of human endurance to make good.

This party was of course deeply hated by the Catholics, and hence the severity with which they are treated by Dryden, who objects to them as the illegitimate offspring of the Panther by the Wolf, and traces to their Presbyterian origin their indifference to the fasts and ascetic observances of the more rigid high-churchmen, and their covert disposition to resist regal domination. Their adherence to the English communion he ascribes only to the lucre of gain, and endeavours, if possible, to draw an odious distinction between them and the rest of the church. Stillingfleet, whom this motive could not escape, had already complained of Dryden's designing any particular class of the clergy by a party name. "From the common people, we come to churchmen, to see how he uses them. And he hath soon found out a faction among them, whom he charges with juggling designs: but romantic heroes must be allowed to make armies of a field of thistles, and to encounter windmills for giants. He would fain be the instrument to divide our clergy, and to fill them with suspicions of one another. And to this end he talks of men of latitudinarian stamp: for it goes a great way towards the making divisions, to be able to fasten a name of distinction among brethren; this being to create jealousies of each other. But there is nothing should make them more careful to avoid such names of distinction, than to observe how ready their common enemies are to make use of them, to create animosities by them; which hath made this worthy gentleman to start this different character of churchmen among us; as though there were any who were not true to the principles of the church of England, as by law established: If he knows them, he is better acquainted with them than the answerer is; for he professes to know none such. But who then are these men of the latitudinarian stamp? To speak in his own language, they are a sort of ergoteerers, who are for a concedo rather than a nego. And now, I hope, they are all well explained; or, in other words of his, they are, saith he, for drawing the nonconformists to their party, i.e. they are for having no nonconformists. And is this their crime? But they would take the headship of the church out of the king's hands: How is that possible? They would (by his own description) be glad to see differences lessened, and all that agree in the same doctrine to be one entire body. But this is that which their enemies fear, and this politician hath too much discovered; for then such a party would be wanting, which might be played upon the church of England, or be brought to join with others against it. But how this should touch the king's supremacy, I cannot imagine. As for his desiring loyal subjects to consider this matter, I hope they will, and the more for his desiring it; and assure themselves, that they have no cause to apprehend any juggling designs of their brethren; who, I hope, will always show themselves to be loyal subjects, and dutiful sons of the church of England."—Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers, p. 104.

Think you, your new French proselytes are come

To starve abroad, because they starved at home?

—— —— —— —— ——

Mark with what management their tribes divide,

Some stick to you, and some to t'other side,

That many churches may for many mouths provide. P. [203].

The Huguenot clergy, who took refuge in England after the recal of the edict of Nantes, did not all adhere to the same Protestant communion. There had been long in London what was called the Walloon church, exclusively dedicated to this sort of worship. Many conformed to the church of England; and, having submitted to new ordination, some of them obtained benefices: others joined in communion with the Presbyterians, and dissenters of various kinds. Dryden insinuates, that had the church of England presented vacancies sufficient for the provision of these foreign divines, she would probably have had the honour of attracting them all within her pale. The reformed clergy of France were far from being at any time an united body. "It might have been expected," says Burnet, "that those unhappy contests between Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, and Anti-Arminians, with some minuter disputes that have enflamed Geneva and Switzerland, should have been at least suspended while they had a common enemy to deal with, against whom their whole force united was scarce able to stand. But these things were carried on rather with more eagerness and sharpness than ever." History of his Own Times, Book IV.

Some sons of mine, who bear upon their shield

Three steeples argent, in a sable field,

Have sharply taxed your converts, who, unfed,

Have followed you for miracles of bread. P. [203].

The three steeples argent obviously alludes to the pluralities enjoyed, perhaps by Stillingfleet, and certainly by some of the divines of the established church, who were not on that account less eager in opposing the intrusion of the Roman clergy, and stigmatising those who, at this crisis, thought proper to conform to the royal faith. These converts were neither numerous nor respectable; and, whatever the Hind is pleased to allege in the text, posterity cannot but suspect the disinterestedness of their motives. Obadiah Walker, and a very few of the university of Oxford, embraced the Catholic faith, conforming at the same time to the forms of the church of England, as if they wished to fulfil the old saying, of having two strings to one bow.—The Earls of Perth and Melfort, with one or two other Scottish nobles, took the same step. Of the first, who must otherwise have failed in a contest which he had with the Duke of Queensberry, it was wittily said by Halifax, that "his faith had made him whole." And, in general, as my countrymen are not usually credited by their brethren of England for an extreme disregard to their own interest, the Scottish converts were supposed to be peculiarly attracted to Rome by the miracle of the loaves and fishes.[265] But it may be said for these unfortunate peers, that if they were dazzled by the momentary sunshine which gleamed on the Catholic church, they scorned to desert her in the tempest which speedily succeeded. Whereas, we shall do a kindness to Lord Sunderland, if we suppose that he became a convert to Popery, merely from views of immediate interest, and not with the premeditated intention of blinding and betraying the monarch, who trusted him. Dryden must be supposed, however, chiefly interested in the vindication of his own motives for a change of religion.

Such who themselves of no religion are,

Allured with gain, for any will declare;

Bare lies with bold assertions they can face,

But dint of argument is out of place;

The grim logician puts them in a fright,

'Tis easier far to flourish than to fight. P. [203].

Dryden here puts into the mouth of the Panther some of the severe language which Stillingfleet had held towards him in the ardour of controversy. He had, in direct allusion to our author, (for he quotes his poetry,) expressed himself thus harshly:

"If I thought there were no such thing in the world as true religion, and that the priests of all religions are alike,[266] I might have been as nimble a convert, and as early a defender of the royal papers, as any one of these champions. For why should not one who believes no religion, declare for any? But since I do verily believe, that not only there is such a thing as true religion, but that it is only to be found in the books of the Holy Scripture, I have reason to inquire after the best means of understanding such books, and thereby, if it may be, to put an end to the controversies of Christendom."[267]

"But our grim logician proceeds from immediate and original to concomitant causes, which he saith were revenge, ambition, and covetousness. But the skill of logicians used to lie in proving; but this is not our author's talent, for not a word is produced to that purpose. If bold sayings, and confident declarations, will do the business, he is never unprovided; but if you expect any reason from him, he begs your pardon. He finds how ill the character of a grim logician suits with his inclination."[268] Again, "But if I will not allow his affirmations for proofs for his part, he will act the grim logician; no, and in truth it becomes him so ill, that he doth well to give it over."[269] And in the beginning of his "Vindication," alluding to a term used by the defender of the king's papers, Stillingfleet says: "But lest I be again thought to have a mind to flourish before I offer to pass, as the champion speaks in his proper language, I shall apply myself to the matter before us."[270]