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. Antaeus-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 y