Although Prior and Montague were first in place and popularity, there wanted not the usual crowd of inferior satirists and poetasters to follow them to the charge. "The Hind and the Panther" was assailed by a variety of pamphlets, by Tom Brown and others, of which an account, with specimens perhaps more than sufficient, is annexed to the notes on the poem in this edition. It is worth mentioning, that on this, as on a former occasion, an adversary of Dryden chose to select one of his own poems as a contrast to his latter opinions. The "_Religio Laici_" was reprinted, and carefully opponed to the various passages of "The Hind and the Panther," which appeared most contradictory to its tenets. But while the Grub-street editor exulted in successfully pointing out the inconsistency between Dryden's earlier and later religious opinions, he was incapable of observing, that the change was adopted in consequence of the same unbroken train of reasoning, and that Dryden, when he wrote the "_Religio Laici_" was under the impulse of the same conviction, which, further prosecuted, led him to acquiesce in the faith of Rome. The king appears to have been hardly less anxious to promote the dispersion of "The Hind I and the Panther," than the Protestant party to ridicule the piece and its author. It was printed about the same time at London and in Edinburgh, where a printing-press was maintained in Holyrood House, for the dispersion of tracts favouring the Catholic religion. The poem went rapidly through two or three editions; a circumstance rather to be imputed to the celebrity of the author, and to the anxiety which foes, as well as friends, entertained to learn his sentiments, than to any disposition to acquiesce in his arguments.