y alluding to having defended Clarendon in public company;
for nothing of the kind occurs in Dryden's publications. [It is not
impossible that the New Year's Day Poem (1662) to the Lord Chancellor is
partly referred to here.--ED.]

[42] Probably the translation of "_Religio Laici_."

[43] [Some important evidence has come to light since Scott wrote, which
shows that the response to Dryden's petitions and the reward of his
services was not so insignificant as appears from the text, though it
was meagre enough. The facts were not known fully even to Macaulay, and
his ignorance enabled him, in perfect honesty, to make the case against
Dryden, for supposed venal apostasy, stronger than it might otherwise
appear. The documents referred to were discovered by Mr. Peter
Cunningham and by Mr. Charles Beville Dryden, the latter of whom
communicated his discovery to Mr. Robert Bell. As the facts are
undoubted, and Macaulay's ignorance of them equally so, it seems a
little remarkable that a reviewer of the little book on Dryden to which
I am too often obliged to refer my readers, should have announced his
adherence to "Macaulay and fact" rather than "Mr. Bell and sophistry."
It is not obvious how fact can be on the side of a writer who was, owing
to no fault of his own, ignorant of the fact, and whose ignorance
furnished him with his premises. The state of the case is this. Dryden's
application to Hyde produced the following Treasury warrant:--

--of the sume of Fifty pounds for one
quarter of the said Annuity or Pencon due at Mid-summer
1680. And by Vertue of his Ma'ts Lres of Privy
Scale directing an additionall Annuity of One hundred
pounds to him the said John Dryden to draw one or
more orders for payment of the sume of Twenty five
Pounds for one Quarter of the said Annuity due at
Lady day 1680. And let both the said sumes making
the sume of Seaventy Five Pounds be satisfyed out of
any his Ma'ts Treasure now or hereafter being and
remaining in the Receipt of Excheq'r not appropriated
to particular uses For w'ch this shal be your Warrant.

Whitehall Treasury Chambers May the 6th 1684

To our very Loving friend S'r Robert Rochester
howard Kn't Auditor of the Receipt J Ernle'r
of his Ma'ts Excheq'r. Ed Dering
Int'r. in officio Auditor Ste: ffox
Recpt see-ij Dni Regis