Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/185

Rh joined the communion of the Church of Rome, he vented his dislike to the class upon such as Milbourne and others who attacked him. Indeed, when, at Pepys' suggestion, he versified the good Parson of Chaucer, it would seem that Dryden's contempt for the clergy of that day had some fair foundation; for Pepys, in a gossipping letter, in which he invites the poet to come and "partake of a cold chicken and a salad," thanks him for the exquisite paraphrase of Chaucer, "hoping," he adds, "from this your copy of the good Parson, some amends made me for the hourly offence I bear with from the sight of so many lewd originals."

From the earnestness and the beauty of the lines in which, in "The Hind and Panther," he has assigned the reason for his change of creed, we might be induced to believe that, like many men of late years, with intellects subtle and refined, and a conscientiousness morbidly sensitive, he had sought refuge from doubts and difficulties in the bosom of the Church which so boldly asserts its claim to infallibility; but we are bound to remember the character of the man, the character of the age in which he lived, the then intimate connection between religious and political parties, the advantages which he gained by taking that step, and lastly the suspicious vehemence with which the new convert became a violent controversialist. To quote against him some lines of his coadjutor Tate, from the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel:"

So Dryden, in addition to "The Hind and Panther," which is one of the most beautiful pieces of reasoning in verse in any language, translated the life of St. Francis Xavier, and rushed into controversies with Stillingfleet, in which he was, of course, worsted.