n and sale, but
proceeded upon a sincere though erroneous conviction, it cannot be
denied, that his situation as poet-laureate, and his expectations from
the king, must have conduced to his taking his final resolution. All I
mean to infer from the above statement is, that his interest and
internal conviction led him to the same conclusion.

If we are to judge of Dryden's sincerity in his new faith, by the
determined firmness with which report retained it through good report
and bad report we must allow him to have been a martyr, or at least a
confessor, in the Catholic cause. If after the Revolution, like many
greater men, he had changed his principles with the times, he was not a
person of such mark as to be selected from all the nation, and punished
for former tenets. Supported by the friendship of Rochester, and most of
the Tory nobles who were active in the Revolution, of Leicester, and
many Whigs, and especially of the Lord-Chamberlain Dorset, there would
probably have been little difficulty in his remaining poet-laureate, if
he had recanted the errors of Popery. But the Catholic religion, and the
consequent disqualifications, was an insurmountable obstacle to his
holding that or any other office under government; and Dryden's
adherence to it, with all the poverty, reproach, and even persecution
which followed the profession, argued a deep and substantial conviction
of the truth of the doctrines it inculcated. So late as 1699, when an
union, in opposition to King William, had led the Tories and Whigs to
look on each other with some kindness, Dryden thus expresses himself in
a letter to his cousin, Mrs. Steward: "The court rather speaks kindly of
me, than does anything for me, though they promise largely; and perhaps
they think I will advance as they go backward, in which they will be
much deceived: for I can never go an inch beyond my conscience and my
honour. If they will consider me as a man who has done my best to
improve the language, and especially the poetry, and will be content
with my acquiescence under the present government, and forbearing satire
on it, that I can promise, because I can perform it: but I can neither
take the oaths, nor forsake my religion; because I know not what Church
to go to, if I leave the Catholic: they are all so divided amongst
themselves in matters of faith, necessary to salvation, and yet all
assuming the name of Protestants. May God be pleased to open your eyes,
as he has opene