sentiments which he imbibed after the Restoration,
and which immediately preceded his adoption of the Catholic faith,
cannot be ascertained without more minute investigation. We may at the
outset be easily permitted to assume, that the adoption of a fixed creed
of religious principles was not the first business of our author, when
that merry period set him free from the rigorous fetters of fanaticism.
Unless he differed more than we can readily believe from the public
feeling at that time, Dryden was satisfied to give to Caesar the things
that were Caesar's, without being in a hurry to fulfil the counterpart
of the precept. Foremost in the race of pleasure, engaged in labours
alien from serious reflection, the favourite of the most lively and
dissolute nobility whom England ever saw, religious thoughts were not,
at this period, likely to intrude frequently upon his mind, or to be
encouraged when they did so. The time, therefore, when Dryden began
seriously to compare the doctrines of the contending sects of
Christianity, was probably several years after the Restoration, when
reiterated disappointment, and satiety of pleasure, prompted his mind to
retire within itself, and think upon hereafter. The "_Religio Laici_"
published in 1682, evinces that, previous to composing that poem, the
author had bestowed serious consideration upon the important subjects of
which it treats: and I have postponed the analysis of it to this place,
in order that the reader may be able to form his own conjecture from
what faith Dryden changed when he became a Catholic.

The "_Religio Laici_" has indeed a political tendency, being written to
defend the Church of England against the sectaries: it is not therefore,
so much from the conclusions of the piece, as from the mode of the
author's deducing these conclusions, that Dryden's real opinions may he
gathered;--as we learn nothing of the bowl's bias from its having
reached its mark, though something may be conjectured by observing the
course which it described in attaining it. From many minute particulars,
I think it almost decisive, that Dryden, when he wrote the "_Religio
Laici_," was sceptical concerning revealed religion. I do not mean, that
his doubts were of that fixed and permanent nature, which have at
different times induced men, of whom better might have been hoped, to
pronounce themselves freethinkers on principle. On the contrary, Dryden
seems to have doubted with such a strong wish t