CHAPTER IV.

LITERARY FRIENDS.

Atterbury's Intimacy with Contemporary Men of LettersDryden's Loyalty and Religion-His "Hind and Panther" -Prior, as Diplomatist and Poet-Was he ever a Vintner? -The "Town and Country Mouse"-Prior in Parliament— His "Solomon "-Atterbury's Opinion of "The Tale of a Tub"-Swift connected with the Tories-His "Project for the Advancement of Religion"-Steele-His Plays— Originates the Tatler - Addison dedicates his Remarks on Italy to Swift-His Career as a Statesman and as a Journalist Contributors to the Tatler and Spectator-Sir Isaac Newton-Lord Harcourt and St. John-Pope-His close Intimacy with Atterbury-Gay-Pope's Affection for him-Dennis, the Critic.

FRANCIS ATTERBURY had written both verse and prose, with a fair amount of success; and while enjoying his respectability as a court chaplain, cultivated the opportunities this post afforded him for associating with men of letters. Some of these had already been school or college associates; but he contrived to make intimacies with others not less worthy of his regard. The reign of Queen Anne has secured an Augustan celebrity for its literature-this is surely an exaggeration; nevertheless there was an impulse then given to the cultivation of imaginative, political, and critical composition, by the publication of periodicals that produced the great results of the

DRYDEN'S LOYALTY.

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century. To this impulse Atterbury largely contributed; but before his labours are described, it is necessary to dwell upon those of his immediate predecessors, who prepared his mind for the conflict of opinion, in which he was desirous of gaining distinction.

Dryden's facility in adopting himself to circumstances, was shown in two compositions written within a couple of years of each other. In the first he wrote thirty-seven verses in this style:

Though in his praise no man can lib'ral be,

Since they whose Muses have the highest shown,

Add not to his immortal memory,

But do an act of friendship to their own.

In the second he put together a longer and more laboured composition to

The best, and best beloved of Kings,

And best deserving to be so!

The first was to the immortal memory of Oliver Cromwell, the other to the very mortal memory of his contrast, Charles II. The poet, not content with, in the latter instance, producing a farrago of inflated nonsense in honour of the dead king, pays court to his successor, by concluding with a complimentary prophecy equally fallacious. James is first referred to as a nonsuch:

But ere a Prince is to perfection brought,

He costs Omnipotence a second thought.

The "lively sense of favours to come. intoxicates his muse into predicting :

* Heroic Stanzas, &c. Dryden's Poems, I. 109.

Cooke's Edition.

then

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DRYDEN'S RELIGION.

With a distant view I see

Th' amended vows of English loyalty;
And all beyond that object there appears
The retinue of a prosperous reign—
A series of successful years! &c., &c.*

In the year 1682 Dryden published his first religious poem, "Religio Laici; or, The Layman's Faith," representing the Scriptures as the only religious authority and guide. It appears to have been written for a friend who was translating Simon's Critical History of the New Testament, and advocated the reformed Church of England, in preference either to the Church of Rome, or the doctrines of the Nonconformists. On the Roman priests of the Middle Ages, and the sectarians of his own time, he is sternly severe. This poem forms a curious contrast with "The Hind and Panther," written only five years later; but in the interval the Duke of York had ascended the throne, and honours and rewards were to be had by writers of talent who would undertake to write up the Papacy and write down the Reformation.

Dryden abandoned Protestantism for Popery, and, with an extravagant estimation of the faith he embraced, endeavoured to decry the one in which he had been reared; completely oblivious of the striking truths he had expressed a few years before in his "Religio Laici." It has been stated that he made the change from the resentment he had cherished against the Church of England, because he had been refused when he sought ordination, and denied the provostship of Eton when a candidate. This is adverted to

* Threnodia Augustalis. Dryden's Poems, I. 108.

DR. STILLINGFLEET.

89

as a fact by those who commented on his apostasy. His malevolent feeling towards the Anglican clergy he exhibited at every opportunity, as rancorously as he maligned the Protestant faith.*

Dr. Stillingfleet had ably exposed a publication purporting to be drawn up from documents written by the late Kingt-about the last person likely to have written a line of them-and Dryden rushed into controversy with more zeal than discretion. After lauding his adopted church, with this illogical argument:"The church is more visible than the scripture, because the scripture is seen by the church," he as maliciously as falsely asserts of the Reformation:-"It was erected on the foundation of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation, and that no paint is capable of making lovely the hideous face of it."

The Reformation in England had had a century of development before Henry VIII. was born, and was the national protest against Papal abuses the writer had described only two or three years before:

Then Mother Church did mightily prevail,

She parcelled out the Bible by retail,
But still expounded what she sold or gave,

To keep it in her power to damn or save.

"But, prythee, why so severe always upon the priesthood, Mr. Bayes? You, I find, still continue your old humour, which we are to date from the year of Hegira, the loss of Eton, or since Orders were refused you.” "The Reasons of Mr. Bayes' changing his Religion considered," &c., by Thomas Browne, 1688. "The late Converts exposed," &c., 1690, a second part of the preceding. "Ever since a certain worthy bishop refused orders to a certain poet, Mr. Dryden has declared open defiance against the whole clergy."-LANGBAINE.

"Answer to some Papers lately printed concerning the Authority of the Catholic Church in matters of Faith, and the Reformation of the Church of England," 1686.

"A Defence of the Papers written by the late King of Blessed Memory and found in his strong box," 1686.

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DRYDEN AS A CONVERT.

Scripture was raised, and as the market went,
Poor laymen took salvation or content

As needy men took money, good or bad.

God's word they had not-but the Priests' they had."

Dr. Stillingfleet replied to the traducer with well merited severity.t

The royal papers were notorious fabrications; nevertheless there were plenty of advocates for their genuineness.

"If I thought," wrote the Doctor, "there was no such thing as true religion in the world, and that the priests of all religions are alike, 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 in no religion, declare for any?"

This serious charge might have been founded on the absence of any religious principle in Dryden's career. On this subject an able apologist has said:-"His tendency to profaneness is the effect of levity, negligence, and loose conversation, with a desire of accommodating himself to the corruptions of the times, by venturing to be wicked as far as he durst. When he professed himself a convert to Popery, he did not pretend to have received any new conviction of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity." ‡

His new conviction came from the same source that had changed him from a partisan of the Commonwealth to an enthusiast for the monarchy—a desire of advancing his own interests; and with this

* Religio Laici.

+"A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers," 1687.
Dr. Johnson, "Lives of the Poets."