332 DRYDEN. 



habitually associated, it is natural that minds even of a 

 high order should unconsciously come to regard religion 

 as only a subtler mode of police.* Dryden, conservative 

 by nature, had discovered before Joseph de Maistre, that 

 Protestantism, so long as it justified its name by con 

 tinuing to be an active principle, was the abettor of 

 Republicanism. I think this is hinted in more than one 

 passage in his preface to &quot; The Hind and Panther.&quot; 

 He may very well have preferred Romanism because of 

 its elder claim to authority in all matters of doctrine, 

 but I think he had a deeper reason in the constitution 

 of his own mind. That he was &quot;naturally inclined to 

 scepticism in philosophy,&quot; he tells us of himself in the 

 preface to the &quot; Religio Laica&quot;; but he was a sceptic 

 with an imaginative side, and in such characters scepticism 

 and superstition play into each other s hands. This finds a 

 curious illustration in a letter to his sons, written four years 

 before his death : &quot; Towards the latter end of this month, 

 September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect health, 

 according to his Nativity, which, casting it myself, I am 

 sure is true, and all things hitherto have happened accord 

 ingly to the very time that I predicted them.&quot; Have we 

 forgotten Montaigne s votive offerings at the shrine of 

 Loreto ? 



Dryden was short of body, inclined to stoutness, and 

 florid of complexion. He is said to have had &quot; a sleepy 

 eye,&quot; but was handsome and of a manly carriage. He 

 &quot; was not a very genteel man, he was intimate with 

 none but poetical rnen.f He was said to be a very good 

 man by all that knew him : he was as plump as Mr. 



* This was true of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and still more of Southey, 

 who in some respects was not unlike Dryden. 



t Pope s notion of gentility was perhaps expressed in a letter from 

 Lord Cobham to him : &quot; I congratulate you upon the fine weather, 

 T is a strange thing that people of condition and men of parts 

 must enjoy it in common with the rest of the world.&quot; (Ruffhead s 

 Pope, p. 276, note.) His lordship s nai ve distinction between people 

 of condition and men of parts is as good as Pope s between genteel 

 and poetical men. I fancy the poet grinning savagely as he read it. 



