The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 08Dryden, John
General
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 08
Dryden, John
English drama -- 17th century
[Footnote 78: The infamous Oates fared, at the Revolution, not so
well as he wished, though much better than he deserved. James II. by
the extreme cruelty of the punishment, which Jefferies doomed, and he
suffered to be inflicted, contrived to excite the public commiseration
even in favour of this miscreant, whose forsworn tongue had occasioned
more murders than the dagger of the most sanguinary bravo. After the
Revolution he obtained a pardon, or rather remission of his inhuman
sentence, to be imprisoned during life, and pilloried five times every
year. He was also admitted to the comforts of a pension of L.400
a-year. But, although he bestirred himself to obtain a reversal of
his judgement for perjury, and wrote an abusive pamphlet, entitled, a
"Picture of the late King James," and dedicated to King William, that
cool-headed monarch, and his sagacious council, would never restore
him to a capacity of bearing evidence. The Earl of Danby, now Duke
of Leeds, who had experienced the danger of his swearing capacity,
would consent to the reversal in no other sense, than that, having
been condemned to be scourged from Newgate to Tyburn, he should now be
scourged back from Tyburn to Newgate. Dryden, therefore, without fear
of offence, might venture a stroke of satire at this once formidable
person.]
[Footnote 79: The allusion seems to be partly to Bryan Haines, the
Tory evidence against Shaftesbury and College, a fellow almost as
infamous as Oates; but chiefly, by way of equivoque, to the wicked wag
Jee Haines, the comedian, who, amongst other pranks, chose, during the
reign of James II., to become Roman Catholic. Whether he took this step
from any serious prospect of advantage, or to throw ridicule on the new
converts, is somewhat dubious; at least his apostacy was not founded
upon conviction for, after the Revolution, he abjured the errors of
Popery, spoke a penitentiary prologue, and reconciled himself to the
church and theatre of England.]
THE END OF THE EIGHTH VOLUME.
Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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