"If joys hereafter must be purchased here
With loss of all that mortals hold so dear,
Then welcome infamy and public shame,
And last, a long farewell to worldly fame!
'Tis said with ease; but, oh, how hardly tried
By haughty souls to human honour tied!
O sharp convulsive pangs of agonising pride!
Down then, rebel, never more to rise!
And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize,
That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice.
'Tis nothing thou hast given; then add thy tears
For a long race of unrepenting years:
'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give;
Then add those may-be years thou hast to live:
Yet nothing still: then poor and naked come,
Thy father will receive his unthrift home,
And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty sum."
Stillingfleet is, however, left personally undistinguished, but Burnet, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, receives chastisement in his stead. The character of this prelate, however unjustly exaggerated, preserves many striking and curious traits of resemblance to the original; and, as was natural, gave deep offence to the party for whom it was drawn. For not only did Burnet at the time express himself with great asperity of Dryden, but long afterwards, when writing his history, he pronounced a severe censure on the immorality of his plays, so inaccurately expressed as to be applicable, by common construction to the author's private character. From this coarse and inexplicit accusation, the memory of Dryden was indignantly vindicated by his friend Lord Lansdowne.
It is also worth remarking, that in the allegory of the swallows, introduced in the Third Part of "The Hind and the Panther," the author seems to have had in his eye the proposal made at a grand consult of the Catholics, that they should retire from the general and increasing hatred of all ranks, and either remain quiet at home, or settle abroad. This plan, which originated in their despair of James's being able to do anything effectual in their favour, was set aside by the fiery opposition of Father Petre, the martin of the fable told by the Panther to the Hind.[12]
The appearance of "The Hind and the Panther" excited a clamour against the author far more general than the publication of "Absalom and Achitophel." Upon that occasion the offence was given only to a party, but this open and avowed defence of James's strides towards arbitrary power, with the unpopular circumstance of its coming from a new convert to the royal faith, involved our poet in the general suspicion with which the nation at large now viewed the slightest motions of their infatuated monarch. The most noted amongst those who appeared to oppose the triumphant advocate of the Hind, were Montague and Prior, young men now rising into eminence. They joined to produce a parody entitled the "Town and Country Mouse;" part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends, Smith and Johnson, by repeating to them. The piece is, therefore, founded upon the twice-told jest of the "Rehearsal." Of the parody itself, we have given ample specimen in its proper place. There is nothing new or original in the idea, which chiefly turns upon the ridiculing the poem of Dryden, where religious controversy is made the subject of dispute and adjustment between a Hind and a Panther, who vary between their typical character of animals and their real character as the Catholic and English Church. In this piece, Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the larger share. Lord Peterborough, on being asked whether the satire was not written by Montague in conjunction with Prior, answered, "Yes; as if I, seated in Mr. Cheselden's chaise drawn by his fine horse, should say, Lord! how finely we draw this chaise!" Indeed, although the parody was trite and obvious, the satirists had the public upon their side; and it now seems astonishing with what acclamations this attack upon the most able champion of James's faith was hailed by his discontented subjects. Dryden was considered as totally overcome by his assailants; they deemed themselves, and were deemed by others, as worthy of very distinguished and weighty recompence;[13] and what was yet a more decisive mark, that their bolt had attained its mark, the aged poet is said to have lamented, even with tears, the usage he had received from two young men, to whom he had been always civil. This last circumstance is probably exaggerated. Montague and Prior had doubtless been frequenters of Will's coffee-house, where Dryden held the supreme rule in criticism, and had thus, among other rising wits, been distinguished by him. That he should have felt their satire is natural, for the arrow flew with the wind, and popularity amply supplied its deficiency in real vigour; but the reader may probably conclude with Johnson, that Dryden was too much hackneyed in political warfare to suffer so deeply from the parody, as Dr. Lockier's anecdote would lead us to believe. "If we can suppose him vexed," says that accurate judge of human nature, "we can hardly deny him sense to conceal his uneasiness."
Although Prior and Montague were first in place and popularity, there wanted not the usual crowd of inferior satirists and poetasters to follow them to the charge. "The Hind and the Panther" was assailed by a variety of pamphlets, by Tom Brown and others, of which an account, with specimens perhaps more than sufficient, is annexed to the notes on the poem in this edition. It is worth mentioning, that on this, as on a former occasion, an adversary of Dryden chose to select one of his own poems as a contrast to his latter opinions. The "Religio Laici" was reprinted, and carefully opponed to the various passages of "The Hind and the Panther," which appeared most contradictory to its tenets. But while the Grub-street editor exulted in successfully pointing out the inconsistency between Dryden's earlier and later religious opinions, he was incapable of observing, that the change was adopted in consequence of the same unbroken train of reasoning, and that Dryden, when he wrote the "Religio Laici" was under the impulse of the same conviction, which, further prosecuted, led him to acquiesce in the faith of Rome.
The king appears to have been hardly less anxious to promote the dispersion of "The Hind I and the Panther," than the Protestant party to ridicule the piece and its author. It was printed about the same time at London and in Edinburgh, where a printing-press was maintained in Holyrood House, for the dispersion of tracts favouring the Catholic religion. The poem went rapidly through two or three editions; a circumstance rather to be imputed to the celebrity of the author, and to the anxiety which foes, as well as friends, entertained to learn his sentiments, than to any disposition to acquiesce in his arguments.
But Dryden's efforts in favour of the Catholic cause were not limited to this controversial poem. He is said to have been at first employed by the court, in translating Varillas's "History of Heresies," a work held in considerable estimation by the Catholic divines. Accordingly, an entry to that purpose was made by Tonson in the Stationers' books, of such a translation made by Dryden at his Majesty's command. This circumstance is also mentioned by Burnet, who adds, in very coarse and abusive terms, that the success of his own remarks having destroyed the character of Varillas as an historian, the disappointed translator revenged himself by the severe character of the Buzzard, under which the future Bishop of Sarum is depicted in "The Hind and the Panther."[14] The credulity of Burnet, especially where his vanity was concerned was unbounded; and there seems room to trace Dryden's attack upon him, rather to some real or supposed concern in the controversy about the Duchess of York's papers, so often alluded to in the poem, than to the commentary on Varillas, which is not once mentioned. Yet it seems certain that Dryden entertained thoughts of translating "The History of Heresies;" and, for whatever reason, laid the task aside. He soon after was engaged in a task, of a kind as unpromising as remote from his poetical studies, and connected, in the same close degree, with the religious views of the unfortunate James II. This was no other than the translation of "The Life of St. Francis Xavier," one of the last adopted saints of the Catholic Church, at least whose merits and supposed miracles were those of a missionary. Xavier is perhaps among the latest also, whose renown for sanctity, and the powers attending it, appears to have been extensive even while he was yet alive.[15] Above all, he was of the order of Jesuits, and the very saint to whom Mary of Este had addressed her vows, in hopes to secure a Catholic successor to the throne of England.[16] It was, therefore, natural enough, that Dryden should have employed himself in translating the life of a saint, whose virtues must at that time have appeared so peculiarly meritorious; whose praises were so acceptable to his patroness; and whose miracles were wrought for the credit of the Catholic Church, within so late a period, besides, the work had been composed by Bartoli, in Portuguese; and by Bouhours, in French. With the merits of the latter we are well acquainted; of the former, Dryden speaks highly in the dedication. It may perhaps be more surprising, that the present editor should have retained this translation, than that Dryden should have undertaken it. But surely the only work of this very particular and enthusiastic nature, which the modern English language has to exhibit, was worthy of preservation, were it but as a curiosity. The creed and the character of Catholic faith are now so much forgotten among us (popularly speaking), that, in reading the "Life of Xavier," the Protestant finds himself in a new and enchanted land. The motives, and the incidents and the doctrines, are alike new to him, and, indeed, occasionally form a strange contrast among themselves. There are few who can read, without a sentiment of admiration, the heroic devotion with which, from the highest principle of duty, Xavier exposes himself to hardship, to danger, to death itself, that he may win souls to the Christian faith. The most rigid Protestant, and the most indifferent philosopher, cannot deny to him the courage and patience of a martyr, with the good sense, resolution, ready wit, and address of the best negotiator, that ever went upon a temporal embassy. It is well that our admiration is qualified by narrations so monstrous, as his actually restoring the dead to life;[17] so profane, as the inference concerning the sweating crucifix;[18] so trivial and absurd, as a crab's fishing up the saint's cross, which had fallen into the sea; and,[19] to conclude, so shocking to humanity, as the account of the saint passing by the house of his ancestors, the abode of his aged mother, on his road to leave Europe for ever, and conceiving he did God good service in denying himself the melancholy consolation of a last farewell.[20] Altogether, it forms a curious picture of the human mind, strung to a pitch of enthusiasm, which we can only learn from such narratives: and those to whom this affords no amusement, may glean some curious particulars from the "Life of Xavier," concerning the state of India and Japan, at the time of his mission, as well as of the internal regulations and singular policy adopted by the society, of which the saint was a member. Besides the "Life of Xavier," Dryden is said to have translated Bossuet's "Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine;" but for this we have but slight authority.[21]
Dryden's political and polemic discussions naturally interfered at this period with his more general poetical studies. About the period of James's accession, Tonson had indeed published a second volume of Miscellanies, to which our poet contributed a critical preface, with various translations from Virgil, Lucretius, and Theocritus and four Odes of Horace; of which the third of the First Book is happily applied to Lord Roscommon, and the twenty-ninth to Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. Upon these and his other translations Garth has the following striking and forcible observations, though expressed in language somewhat quaint. "I cannot pass by that admirable English poet, without endeavouring to make his country sensible of the obligations they have to his Muse. Whether they consider the flowing grace of his versification, the vigorous sallies of his fancy, or the peculiar delicacy of his periods, they all discover excellencies never to be enough admired. If they trace him from the first productions of his youth to the last performances of his age, they will find, that as the tyranny of rhyme never imposed on the perspicuity of sense, so a languid sense never wanted to be set off by the harmony of rhyme. And, as his early works wanted no maturity, so his latter wanted no force or spirit. The falling off of his hair had no other consequence than to make his laurels be seen the more.
"As a translator, he was just; as an inventor, he was rich. His versions of some parts of Lucretius, Horace, Homer, and Virgil, throughout gave him a just pretence to that compliment which was made to Monsieur d'Ablancourt, a celebrated French translator. It is uncertain who have the greatest obligation to him, the dead or the living.
"With all these wondrous talents, he was libelled, in his lifetime, by the very men who had no other excellencies but as they were his imitators Where he was allowed to have sentiments superior to all others, they charged him with theft. But how did he steal? no otherwise than like those who steal beggars' children, only to clothe them the better."