us style of the poet-laureate had indeed given an
opening, "Zeal," says Stillingfleet, "in a new convert, is a terrible
thing, for it not only burns, but rages like the eruptions of Mount
Etna; it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a
torrent of living fire, that there is no standing before it." In another
passage, Stillingfleet talks of the "temptation of changing religion for
bread;" in another, our author's words, that

"Priests of all religions are the same," [10]

are quoted to infer, that he who has no religion may declare for any.
Dryden took his revenge both on Stillingfleet the author, and on Burnet,
whom he seems to have regarded as the reviser of this answer, in his
polemical poem of "The Hind and the Panther."

If we can believe an ancient tradition, this poem was chiefly composed
in a country retirement at Rushton, near his birth-place in Huntingdon
[Northamptonshire]. There was an embowered walk at this place, which,
from the pleasure which the poet took in it, retained the name of
Dryden's Walk; and here was erected, about the middle of last century,
an urn, with the following inscription: "In memory of Dryden, who
frequented these shades, and is here said to have composed his poem of
'The Hind and the Panther.'"[11]

"The Hind and the Panther" was written with a view to obviate the
objections of the English clergy and people to the power of dispensing
with the test laws, usurped by James II. A change of political measures,
which took place while the poem was composing, has greatly injured its
unity and consistence. In the earlier part of his reign, James
endeavoured to gain the Church of England, by fair means and flattery,
to submit to the remission which he claimed the liberty of granting to
the Catholics. The first part of Dryden's poem is written upon this
soothing plan; the Panther, or Church of England, is

"sure the noblest next the Hind,
And fairest offspring of the spotted kind.
Oh could her inborn stains be washed away,
She were too good to be a beast of prey."

The sects, on the other hand, are characterised, wolves, bears, boars,
foxes,--all that is odious and horrible in the brute creation. But ere
the poem was published, the king had assumed a different tone with the
established church. Relying upon the popularity which the suspension of
the penal laws was calculated to procure among the Dissenters, he
endeavoured to strengthen his party by makin