iterary, was the object
of assault by every subaltern scribbler, titled or untitled, laureated
or pilloried. "My morals," he himself has said, "have been sufficiently
aspersed; that only sort of reputation, which ought to be dear to every
honest man, and is to me." In such an assault, no weapon would remain
unhandled, no charge, true or false, unurged; and what qualities we do
not there find excepted against, must surely be admitted to pass to the
credit of Dryden. His change of political opinion, from the time he
entered life under the protection of a favourite of Cromwell, might have
argued instability, if he had changed a second time, when the current of
power and popular opinion set against the doctrines of the Reformation.
As it is, we must hold Dryden to have acted from conviction, since
personal interest, had that been the ruling motive of his political
conduct, would have operated as strongly in 1688 as in 1660. The change
of his religion we have elsewhere discussed; and endeavoured to show
that, although Dryden was unfortunate in adopting the more corrupted
form of our religion, yet, considered relatively, it was a fortunate and
laudable conviction which led him from the mazes of scepticism to become
a catholic of the communion of Rome.[57] It would be vain to maintain,
that in his early career he was free from the follies and vices of a
dissolute period; but the absence of every positive charge, and the
silence of numerous accusers, may be admitted to prove, that he partook
in them more from general example than inclination, and with a moderate,
rather than voracious or undistinguishing appetite. It must be admitted,
that he sacrificed to the Belial or Asmodeus of the age, in his
writings; and that he formed his taste upon the licentious and gay
society with which he mingled. But we have the testimony of one who knew
him well, that, however loose his comedies, the temper of the author was
modest;[58] his indelicacy was like the forced impudence of a bashful
man; and Rochester has accordingly upbraided him, that his
licentiousness was neither natural nor seductive. Dryden had
unfortunately conformed enough to the taste of his age, to attempt that
"nice mode of wit," as it is termed by the said noble author, whose name
has become inseparably connected with it; but it sate awkwardly upon his
natural modesty, and in general sounds impertinent, as well as
disgusting. The clumsy phraseology of Burnet, in passing censu