The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I | Page 8

and comforts in the Popish creed for one who felt with Dryden, that he had, partly in his practice, and far more in his writings, sinned against the laws of morality and common decency, we readily grant. Whether these charms he legitimate, and these comforts sound, is a very different question. Had Dryden, besides, turned Protestant again, we question if it would have saved him his laureate pensions, and it would certainly have blasted him for ever, under the charge of ingratitude to his benefactor James. On the whole, this passage of the poet's life is not very creditable to his memory, and his indiscriminate admirers had better let it alone. It would have strained the ingenuity and the enthusiasm of Claud Halcro himself to have extracted matter for a panegyrical ode on this conversion of "glorious John."
Admitted into the bosom of the Church, he soon found that he must prove his faith by his works. He was employed by James to defend the reasons of conversion to the Catholic faith alleged by Anne Duchess of York, and the two other papers on the same subject which, found in Charles' strong box, James had imprudently given to the world. This led him to a contest with Stillingfleet, in which Dryden came off only second best. He next, in an embowered walk, in a country retirement at Rushton, near his birthplace, composed his strange, unequal, but brilliant and ingenious poem, "The Hind and the Panther," the object of which was to advocate King James' repeal of the Test Act, and to prove the immeasurable superiority of the Church of Rome to that of England, as well as to all the dissenting sects. This piece produced a prodigious clamour against the author. Its plan was pronounced ridiculous--its argument one-sided--its zeal assumed--and Montague and Prior, two young men then rising into eminence, wrote a clever parody on it, entitled the "Town and Country Mouse." In addition to this, he wrote a translation of Varilla's "History of Heresies," and a life of Francis Xavier, the famous apostle of the Indies, whose singular story, a tale of heroic endurance and unexampled labours, but bedropt with the most flagrant falsehoods, whether it be read in Dryden's easy and fascinating narrative, or in the more gorgeous and coloured account of Sir James Stephen, in the "Edinburgh Review," forms one of the most impressive displays of human strength and folly, of the greatness of devoted enthusiasm, and of the weakness and credulity of abject superstition.
In spite of all these attempts to bolster up a tottering throne and an effete faith, the Revolution came, and Dryden's hopes and prospects sank like a vision of the night. And now came the hour of his enemies' revenge! How the Settles, the Shadwells, and the Ravenscrofts, rejoiced at the downfall of their great foe! and what ironical condolence, or bitter satirical exultation, they poured over his humiliation! And, worst of all, he durst not reply. "His powers of satire," says Scott, "at this period, were of no more use to Dryden than a sword to a man who cannot draw it." The fate of Milton in miniature had now befallen him; and it says much for the strength of his mind, that, as in Milton's case, Dryden's purest and best titles to fame date from his discomfiture and degradation. Ant?us-like, he had now reached the ground, and the touch of the ground to him, as to all giants, was inspiration.
His history, from this date, becomes, still more than in the former portions of it, a history of his publications. He was forced back by necessity to the stage. In 1690, and in the next two years, he produced four dramas,--one of them, indeed, adapted from the French, but the other three, original; and one, Don Sebastian, deemed to rank among the best of his dramatic works. In 1693, another volume of miscellanies, with more translations, appeared. He also published, about this time, a new version of "Juvenal and Persius," portions of which were contributed by his sons John and Charles. His last play, "Love Triumphant," was enacted--as his first, the "Wild Gallant," had been--without success; and it is remarkable, that while the curtain dropped heavily and slowly upon Dryden, it was opening upon Congreve, whose first comedy was enacted the same year with Dryden's last, and who became the lawful heir of much of Dryden's licentiousness, and of more than his elegance and wit.
He next commenced the translation of "Virgil," which in the course of three years he completed, and gave to the world. It was published in July 1697. He had dashed it off with the utmost freedom and fire, and no work was ever more thoroughly identified with its translator. It is Dryden's "Virgil," every line of it. A great