Or brought to any other fashion,
Than his own will and inclination.
Hudibras, Part 1. Canto 3.
[80] "In short, the whole poem, if it may deserve that name, is a piece of deformed, arrogant nonsense, and self-contradiction, drest up in fine language, like an ugly brazen-faced whore, peeping through the costly trappings of a point de Venise cornet. I call it nonsense, because unseasonable; and arrogant, because impertinent: For could Mr Bayes have so little wit, to think himself a sufficient champion to decide the high mysteries of faith and transubstantiation, and the nice disputes concerning traditions and infallibility, in a discourse between "The Hind and the Panther," which, undetermined hitherto, have exercised all the learning in the world? Or, could he think the grand arcana of divinity a subject fit to be handled in flourishing rhyme, by the author of "The Duke of Guise," or "The Conquest of Peru," or "The Spanish Friar:" Doubts which Mr Bayes is no more able to unfold, than Saffold to resolve a question in astrology. And all this only as a tale to usher in his beloved character, and to shew the excellency of his wit in abusing honest men. If these were his thoughts, as we cannot rationally otherwise believe, seeing that no man of understanding will undertake an enterprise, wherein he does not think himself to have some advantage of his predecessors; then does this romance, I say, of The Panther and the Hind, fall under the most fatal censure of unseasonable folly and saucy impertinence. Nor can I think, that the more solid, prudent, and learned persons of the Roman Church, con him any thanks for laying the prophane fingers of a turn-coat upon the altar of their sacred debates."—The Revolter, a tragi-comedy, acted between The Hind and Panther and Religio Laici, &c. 1687.
[81] The following is the commencement of his "Reflections on the Hind and Panther," in a letter to a friend, 1687:
"The present you have made me of "The Hind and Panther," is variously talked of here in the country. Some wonder what kind of champion the Roman Catholics have now gotten; for they have had divers ways of representing themselves; but this of rhyming us to death, is altogether new and unheard of, before Mr Bayes set about it; and, indeed, he hath done it in the sparkishest poem that ever was seen. 'Tis true, he hath written a great many things; but he never had such pure swiftness of thought, as in this composition, nor such fiery flights of fancy. Such hath always been his dramatical and scenical way of scribbling, that there was no post nor pillar in the town exempt from the pasting up of the titles of his plays; insomuch, that the footboys, for want of skill in reading, do now (as we hear) often bring away, by mistake, the title of a new book against the Church of England, instead of taking down the play for the afternoon. Yet, if he did it well or handsomely, he might deserve some pardon; but, alas! how ridiculously doth he appear in print for any religion, who hath made it his business to laugh at all! How can he stand up for any mode of worship, who hath been accustomed to bite, and spit his venom against the very name thereof?
"Wherefore, I cannot but wish our adversaries joy on their new-converted hero, Mr Bayes; whose principle it is to fight single with whole armies; and this one quality he prefers before all the moral virtues put together. The Roman Catholics may talk what they will, of their Bellarmine and Perrone, their Hector and Achilles, and I know not who; but I desire them all, to shew one such champion for the cause, as this Drawcansir: For he is the man that kills whole nations at once; who, as he never wrote any thing, that any one can imagine has ever been the practice of the world, so, in his late endeavours to pen controversy, you shall hardly find one word to the purpose. He is that accomplished person, who loves reasoning so much in verse, and hath got a knack of writing it smoothly. The subject (he treats of in this poem) did, in his opinion, require more than ordinary spirit and flame; therefore, he supposed it to be too great for prose; for he is too proud to creep servilely after sense; so that, in his verse, he soars high above the reach of it. To do this, there is no need of brain, 'tis but scanning right; the labour is in the finger, not in the head.
"However, if Mr Bayes would be pleased to abate a little of the exuberancy of his fancy and wit; to dispense with his ornaments and superfluencies of invention and satire, a man might consider, whether he should submit to his argument; but take away the railing, and no argument remains; so that one may beat the bush a whole day, and, after so much labour, only spring a butterfly, or start a hedge-hog.
"For all this, is it not great pity to see a man, in the flower of his romantic conceptions, in the full vigour of his studies on love and honour, to fall into such a distraction, as to walk through the thorns and briars of controversy, unless his confessor hath commanded it, as a penance for some past sins? that a man, who hath read Don Quixote for the greatest part of his life, should pretend to interpret the Bible, or trace the footsteps of tradition, even in the darkest ages?"—Four Letters, &c.
[82] "To draw now to an end, Mr Bayes, I hear, has lately complained, at Willis' Coffeehouse, of the ill usage he has met in the world; that whereas he had the generosity and assurance to set his own name to his late piece of polemic poetry, yet others, who have pretended to answer him, wanted the breeding and civility to do the like: Now, because I would not willingly disoblige a person of Mr Bayes's character, I do here fairly, and before all the world, assure him that my name is Dudly Tomkinson, and that I live within two miles of St Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, and have, in my time, been both constable, church-warden, and overseer of the parish; by the same token, that the little gallery next the belfry, the new motto about the pulpit, the king's arms, the ten commandments, and the great sun-dial in the church-yard, will transmit my name to all posterity. Furthermore, (if it will do him any good at all) I can make a pretty shift to read without spectacles; wear my own hair, which is somewhat inclining to red; have a large mole on my left cheek; am mightily troubled with corns; and, what is peculiar to my constitution, after half-a-dozen bottles of claret, which I generally carry home every night from the tavern, I never fail of a stool or two next morning; besides, use to smoke a pipe every day after dinner, and afterwards steal a nap for an hour or two in the old wicker-chair near the oven; take gentle purgatives spring and fall; and it has been my custom, any time these sixteen years, (as all the parish can testify) to ride in Gambadoes. Nay, to win the heart of him for ever, I invite him here, before the courteous reader, to a country regale, (provided he will before hand promise not to debauch my wife,) where he shall have sugar to his roast beef, and vinegar to his butter; and lastly, to make him amends for the tediousness of the journey, a parcel of relics to carry home with him, which I believe can scarce be matched in the whole Christian world; but, because I have no great fancy that way, I don't care if I part with them to so worthy a person; they are as followeth: