principal
debate betwixt us. In the mean time, he would dispute the motives of her
change; how preposterously, let all men judge, when he seemed to deny
the subject of the controversy, the change itself. And because I would
not take up this ridiculous challenge, he tells the world I cannot
argue: but he may as well infer, that a Catholic cannot fast, because he
will not take up the cudgels against Mrs James, to confute the
Protestant religion.

I have but one word more to say concerning the poem as such, and
abstracting from the matters, either religious or civil, which are
handled in it. The first part, consisting most in general characters and
narration, I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the majestic turn of
heroic poesy. The second being matter of dispute, and chiefly concerning
Church authority, I was obliged to make as plain and perspicuous as
possibly I could; yet not wholly neglecting the numbers, though I had
not frequent occasions for the magnificence of verse. The third, which
has more of the nature of domestic conversation, is, or ought to be,
more free and familiar than the two former.

There are in it two episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the
main design; so that they are properly parts of it, though they are also
distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use of the
commonplaces of satire, whether true or false, which are urged by the
members of the one Church against the other: at which I hope no reader
of either party will be scandalized, because they are not of my
invention, but as old, to my knowledge, as the times of Boccace and
Chaucer on the one side, and as those of the Reformation on the other.

* * * * *

PART I.

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds,
And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forced to fly,
And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

Not so her young; for their unequal line
Was hero's make, half human, half divine. 10
Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate,
The immortal part assumed immortal state.
Of these a slaughter'd army lay in blood,
Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose,
And crie