and in which therefore every mind was interested, the reception was eager, and the fale fo large, that my father, an old bookfeller, told me, he had not known it equalled but by Sacheverell's trial.

The reafon of this general perufal Addifon has attempted to derive from the delight which the mind feels in the investigation of fecrets; and thinks that curiofity to decypher the names procured readers to the poem. There is no need to enquire why those verses were read, which, to all the attractions of wit, elegance, and harmony, added the cooperation of all the factious paffions, and filled every mind with triumph or refent

ment.

It could not be fuppofed that all the provocation given by Dryden would be endured without resistance or reply. Both his perfon and his party were expofed in their turns to the shafts of satire, which, though neither fo well pointed nor perhaps so well aimed, undoubtedly drew blood.

One of these poems is called Dryden's Satire on his Mufe; afcribed, though, as Pope

fays,

fays, falfely, to Somers, who was afterwards Chancellor. The whose foever it was,

poem,

has much virulence, and fome spriteliness. The writer tells all the ill that he can collect both of Dryden and his friends.

The poem of Abfalom and Achitophel had two answers, now both forgotten; one called Azaria and Hubai; the other Abfalom fenior. Of these hoftile compofitions, Dryden apparently imputes Abfalom fenior to Settle, by quoting in his verses against him the second line. Azaria and Hufbai was, as Wood fays, imputed to him, though it is somewhat unlikely that he should write twice on the fame occafion. This is a difficulty which I cannot remove, for want of a minuter knowledge of poetical transactions.

The fame year he published the Medal, of which the fubject is a medal struck on lord Shaftesbury's escape from a profecution, by the ignoramus of a grand jury of Londoners.

In both poems he maintains the fame principles, and faw them both attacked by the fame antagonist. Elkanah Settle, who had anfwered Abfalom, appeared with equal

ΙΟ

courage

courage in oppofition to the Medal, and published an answer called The Medal reverfed, with fo much fuccefs in both encounters, that he left the palm doubtful, and divided the fuffrages of the nation. Such are the revolutions of fame, or fuch is the prevalence of fashion, that the man whose works have not yet been thought to deserve the care of collecting them; who died forgotten in an hofpital; and whofe latter years were spent in contriving fhows for fairs, and carrying an elegy or epithalamium, of which the beginning and end were occafionally varied, but the intermediate parts were always the fame, to every house where there was a funeral or a wedding; might, with truth, have had inscribed upon his stone,

Here lies the Rival and Antagonist of Dryden.

Settle was, for this rebellion, feverely chaftifed by Dryden under the name of Doeg, in the fecond part of Abfalom and Achitophel, and was perhaps for his factious audacity made the city poet, whose annual office was to defcribe the glories of the Mayor's day. Of these bards he was the laft, and seems not much to have deferved

even this degree of regard, if it was paid to his political opinions; for he afterwards wrote a panegyrick on the virtues of judge Jefferies, and what more could have been done by the meaneft zealot for prerogative ?

Of tranflated fragments, or occafional po- . ems, to enumerate the titles, or fettle the dates would be tedious, with little ufe. It be obferved, that as Dryden's genius was commonly excited by fome perfonal regard, he rarely writes upon a general topick,

may

Soon after the acceffion of king James,

when the defign of reconciling the nation to the church of Rome became apparent, and the religion of the court gave the only efficacious title to its favours, Dryden declared himself a convert to popery. This at any other time might have paffed with little cenfure. Sir Kenelm Digby embraced popery; the two Rainolds reciprocally converted one another; and Chillingworth himself was a while fo entangled in the wilds of controverfy, as to retire for quiet to an infallible church. If men of argument and study can find fuch difficulties, or fuch motives, as may either unite them to the church of Rome,

or

́or detain them in uncertainty, there can be no wonder that a man, who perhaps never enquired why he was a proteftant, should by an artful and experienced difputant be made a papift, overborn by the fudden violence of new and unexpected arguments, or deceived by a representation which fhews only the doubts on one part, and only the evidence on the other.

C

That converfion will always be fufpected that apparently concurs with interest. He that never finds his error till it hinders his progrefs towards wealth or honour, will not be thought to love Truth only for herself. Yet it may eafily happen that information may come at a commodious time; and as truth and intereft are not by any fatal neceffity at variance, that one may by accident introduce the other. When opinions are ftruggling into popularity, the arguments by which they are oppofed or defended become more known; and he that changes his profeffion would perhaps have changed it before, with the like opportunities of inftruction. This was then the ftate of popery; every artifice was ufed to fhew it in its fairest form; and it must be owned to