[50] To engage upon liking, (an image rather too familiar for the occasion,) is to take a temporary trial of a service, or business, with licence to quit it at pleasure.
[53] Alluding to the Duke's banishment to Flanders. See note on "Absalom and Achitophel," Vol. IX. p. 384.
[54] The testament of king David, by which he bequeathed to his son the charge of executing vengeance on those enemies whom he had spared during his life, has been much canvassed by divines. I indulge myself in a tribute to a most venerable character, when I state, that the most ingenious discourses I ever heard from the pulpit, were upon this and other parts of David's conduct, in a series of lectures by the late Reverend Dr John Erskine, one of the ministers of the Old Greyfriars church in Edinburgh.
[55] King Charles' first parliament, from passing the Act of Indemnity, and taking other measures to drown all angry recollection of the civil wars, was called the Healing Parliament.
[56] A similar line occurs in the Annus Mirabilis, St. 160:
The expression is originally Virgil's:
[58] Reckoning from the death of his father, Charles had reigned thirty-six years and eight days; and, counting from his restoration, twenty-four years, eight months, and nine days.
[59] Ancus Martius, who succeeded the peaceful Numa Pompilius as king of Rome.
[61] Ralph, Vol. I. p. 834.
[62] Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, p. 253.
[63] Epistle to Mr Duke.
[64] Burnet's History of his own Times. End of Book III.
[65] Character of Charles II., Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Works, Vol. II. p. 65.
[66] One Dr Stokeham is said to have alleged, that the king's fit was epileptic, not apoplectic, and that bleeding was ex diametro wrong.
[67] Nell Gwyn.
[68] Echard's History, p. 1046.
[69] Dalrymple's Memoirs, 8vo. vol. i. p. 66.
[70] In the years 1662 and 1674. See Vol. IX, p. 448.
[71] Our author was not the only poet who hailed this dawn of toleration; for there is in Luttrell's Collection, "A Congratulatory Poem, dedicated to his Majesty, on the late gracious Declaration (9th June, 1687); by a Person of Quality."
[72] Turkish Spy, Vol. viii. p. 19.
[73] Perhaps the poet recollected the attributes ascribed to the panther by one of the fathers: "Pantheræ, ut Divus Basilius ait, cum immani sint ac crudeli odio in homines a natura incensæ, in hominum simulacra furibundæ irruunt, nec aliter hominum effigiem, quam homines ipsos dilacerant."—Granateus Concion. de Tempore, Tom. i. p. 492.
[74] "Only by the way, before we bring D. against D. to the stake, I would fain know how Mr Bayes, that so well understood the nature of beasts, came to pitch upon the Hind and the Panther, to signify the church of Rome and the church of England? Doubtless his reply will be, because the hind is a creature harmless and innocent; the panther mischievous and inexorable. Let all this be granted; what is this to the author's absurdity in the choice of his beasts? For the scene of the persecution is Europe, a part of the world which never bred panthers since the creation of the universe. On the other side, grant his allusion passable, and then he stigmatizes the church of England to be the most cruel and most voracious creature that ranges all the Lybian deserts;—a character, which shows him to have a strange mist before his eyes when he reads ecclesiastical history. And then, says he,
Which is another blunder, cujus contrarium verum est: For if beauty, strength, and courage, advance the value of the several parts of the creation, without question the panther is far to be preferred before the hind, a poor, silly, timorous, ill-shaped, bobtailed creature, of which a score will hardly purchase the skin of a true panther. Had he looked a little farther, Ludolphus would have furnished him with a zebra, the most beautiful of all the four-footed creatures in the world, to have coped with his panther for spots, and with his hind for gentleness and mildness; of which one was sold singly to the Turkish governor of Suaquena for 2000 Venetian ducats. There had been a beast for him, as pat as a pudding for a friar's mouth. But to couple the hind and the panther was just like sic magna parvis componere; and, therefore, he had better have put his hind in a good pasty, or reserved her for some more proper allusion; for this, though his nimble beast have four feet, will by no means run quatuor pedibus, though she had a whole kennel of hounds at her heels."—The Revolter, a Tragi-comedy.
[75] The following justification of their plan is taken from the preface, which is believed to have been entirely the composition of Montague.
"The favourers of 'The Hind and Panther' will be apt to say in its defence, that the best things are capable of being turned to ridicule; that Homer has been burlesqued, and Virgil travestied, without suffering any thing in their reputation from that buffoonery; and that, in like manner,'The Hind and the Panther' may be an exact poem, though it is the subject of our raillery: But there is this difference, that those authors are wrested from their true sense, and this naturally falls into ridicule; there is nothing represented here as monstrous and unnatural, which is not equally so in the original.—First, as to the general design; Is it not as easy to imagine two mice bilking coachmen, and supping at the Devil, as to suppose a hind entertaining the panther at a hermit's cell, discussing the greatest mysteries of religion, and telling you her son Rodriguez writ very good Spanish? What can be more improbable and contradictory to the rules and examples of all fables, and to the very design and use of them? They were first begun, and raised to the highest perfection, in the eastern countries, where they wrote in signs, and spoke in parables, and delivered the most useful precepts in delightful stories; which, for their aptness, were entertaining to the most judicious, and led the vulgar into understanding by surprizing them with their novelty, and fixing their attention. All their fables carry a double meaning; the story is one and entire; the characters the same throughout, not broken or changed, and always conformable to the nature of the creatures they introduce. They never tell you, that the dog, which snapt at a shadow, lost his troop of horse; that would be unintelligible; a piece of flesh is proper for him to drop, and the reader will apply it to mankind: They would not say, that the daw, who was so proud of her borrowed plumes, looked very ridiculous, when Rodriguez came and took away all the book but the 17th, 24th, and 25th chapters, which she stole from him. But this is his new way of telling a story, and confounding the moral and the fable together.
What relation has the hind to our Saviour? or what notion have we of a panther's bible? If you say he means the church, how does the church feed on lawns, or range in the forest? Let it be always a church, or always the cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shifting the scene every line. If it is absurd in comedies to make a peasant talk in the strain of a hero, or a country wench use the language of the court, how monstrous is it to make a priest of a hind, and a parson of a panther? To bring them in disputing with all the formalities and terms of the school? Though as to the arguments themselves, those we confess are suited to the capacity of the beasts; and if we would suppose a hind expressing herself about these matters, she would talk at that rate."
The reader may be curious to see a specimen of the manner in which these two applauded wits encountered Dryden's controversial poem, with such eminent success, that a contemporary author has said, "that 'The City and Country Mouse' ruined the reputation of the divine, as the 'Rehearsal' ruined the reputation of the poet."[76] The plan is a dialogue between Bayes, and Smith, and Johnson, his old friends in the "Rehearsal;" the poet recites to them a new work, in which the Popish and English churches are represented as the city and country mouse, the former spotted, the latter milk-white. The following is a specimen both of the poetry and dialogue:
"Now, would not you think she's going? but, egad, you're mistaken; you shall hear a long argument about infallibility before she stir yet:
"Here, you see, I don't trouble myself to keep on the narration, but write White speaks, or Dapple speaks, by the side. But when I get any noble thought, which I envy a mouse should say, I clap it down in my own person, with a poeta loquitur; which, take notice, is a surer sign of a fine thing in my writings, than a hand in the margent anywhere else.—Well now, says White,
"That's true, egad: Well said, White.—You see her adversary has nothing to say for herself; and, therefore, to confirm the victory, she shall make a simile.
Bayes. Every jot, egad; or rather better. Well, she can do it two ways; either about emission or reception of light, or else about Epsom waters: But I think the last is most familiar; therefore speak, my pretty one. [Reads.]
"And, egad, she's in the right on't; but, mind now, she comes upon her scoop. [Reads.]
"And, egad, if they had been never so good, this next line confutes 'em. [Reads.]
"There's a surprize for you now!—How sneakingly t'other looks?—Was not that pretty now, to make her ask for a guide first, and tell her she was one? Who could have thought that this little mouse had the Pope, and a whole general council, in her belly?—Now Dapple had nothing to say to this; and, therefore, you'll see she grows peevish. [Reads.]
"Ha! is not that right, Mr Johnson?—Gad forgive me, he is fast asleep! Oh the damned stupidity of this age! Asleep!—Well, sir, since you're so drowsy, your humble servant.
John. Nay, pray, Mr Bayes! Faith, I heard you all the while.—The white mouse——
Bayes. The white mouse! Ay, ay, I thought how you heard me. Your servant, sir, your servant.
John. Nay, dear Bayes: Faith, I beg thy pardon, I was up late last night. Prithee, lend me a little snuff, and go on.
Bayes. Go on! Pox, I don't know where I was.—Well, I'll begin. Here, mind, now they are both come to town. [Reads.]
"There's the utile which ought to be in all poetry. Many a young Templar will save his shilling by this stratagem of my mice.
Smith. Why, will any young Templar eat out the back of a coach?
Bayes. No, egad! But you'll grant, it is mighty natural for a mouse."—Hind and Panther Transversed.
Such was the wit, which, bolstered up by the applause of party, was deemed an unanswerable ridicule of Dryden's favourite poem.
[76] Preface to the Second Part of "The Reasons of Mr Bayes changing his Religion."
[77] i.e. Dryden himself.
[78] I know not, however, but a critic might here also point out an example of that discrepancy, which is censured by Johnson, and ridiculed by Prior. The cause of dissatisfaction in the pigeon-house is, that the proprietor chuses rather to feed upon the flesh of his domestic poultry, than upon theirs; no very rational cause of mutiny on the part of the doves.
[79] Butler, however, assigns the Bear-Garden as a type of my Mother Kirk; and the resemblance is thus proved by Ralpho:
Hudibras denies the resemblance, and answers by an appeal to the senses:
[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:
"St Gregory's Ritual, bound up in the same calve's-skin that the old gentleman, in St Luke, roasted at the return of his prodigal son.
"The quadrant that a Philistine tailor took the height of Goliah by, when he made him his last suit of clothes; for the giant being a man of extraordinary dimensions, it was impossible to do this in any other way than your designers use when they take the height of a country-steeple," &c &c..—Reasons for Mr Bayes changing his Religion. See Preface.
[83] THE LAUREAT.
[84] "Tale of a Tub," first part. "Tommy Potts" is a silly popular ballad, for which see Ritson's "Ancient Songs."
[85] The tumultuary joy of the sectaries, upon their first view of this triumph over the church of England, led them into all the extravagancies of loyalty, which used to be practised by their ancient enemies the Tories. Addresses teeming with affection, and foaming with bombast, were poured in upon King James from all corners of his dominions; Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, Sectaries of all sorts and persuasions, strove to be foremost in the race of gratitude. And when similar addresses came in from corporations, who had been formerly anxious to shew their loyalty on the subject of the Rye-house plot, the king's accession, and other occasions of triumph to the Tories, the tone of these bodies also was wonderfully changed; and, instead of raving against excluders, rebels, regicides, republicans, and fanatics, whose hellish contrivances endeavoured to destroy the safety of the kingdom, and the life of the king, these same gentlemen mention the Sectaries as their brethren and fellow-subjects, to whom the king, their common father, had been justly, liberally, royally pleased to grant freedom of conscience, for which the addressers offer their hearty and unfeigned thanks. These were the two classes of persons, whom Dryden, as they had closed with the measures of government, declares to be exempted from his satire. Those, therefore, against whom it is avowedly directed, are first, the Church of England, whose adherents saw her destruction aimed at through the pretence of toleration. 2dly, Those Sectaries, who distrusted the boon which the king presented, and feared that the consequences of this immediate indulgence at the hands of an ancient enemy, would be purchased by future persecution. These formed a body, small at first, but whose numbers daily increased.
Among the numerous addresses which were presented to the court on this occasion, there are two somewhat remarkable from the quality and condition of the persons in whose name they are offered. The one is from the persons engaged in the schemes of Shaftesbury and Monmouth, and who set out by acknowledging their lives and fortunes forfeited to King James; a singular instance of convicts offering their sentiments upon state affairs. The other is from no less a corporation than the company of London Cooks, which respectable persons declare their approbation of the indulgence, upon a principle recognized in their profession, "the difference of men's gusto, in religion, as in eatables;" and assure his majesty, that his declaration "somewhat resembles the Almighty's manna, which suited every man's palate." History of Addresses, pp. 106, 132.
[86] Most readers will, I think, acknowledge with me, the extreme awkwardness with which Dryden apologizes, for hoping well of those Sectaries, against whom he had so often discharged the utmost severity of his pen. Yet there is much real truth in the observation, though the compliment to the new allies of the Catholics is but a cold one. Many sects have distinguished themselves by faction, fanaticism, and furious excess at their rise, which, when their spirits have ceased to be agitated by novelty, and exasperated by persecution, have subsided into quiet orderly classes of citizens, only remarkable for some peculiarities of speculative doctrine.