The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10Dryden, John
Religion
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10
Dryden, John
English literature
There are in it two episodes, or fables, which are interwoven with the
main design; so that they are properly parts of it, though they are
also distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use
of the common-places of satire, whether true or false, which are urged
by the members of the one church against the other: at which I hope no
reader of either party will be scandalized, because they are not of my
invention, but as old, to my knowledge, as the times of Boccace and
Chaucer on the one side, and as those of the Reformation on the other.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 85: The tumultuary joy of the sectaries, upon their first
view of this triumph over the church of England, led them into all
the extravagancies of loyalty, which used to be practised by their
ancient enemies the Tories. Addresses teeming with affection, and
foaming with bombast, were poured in upon King James from all corners
of his dominions; Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, Sectaries of all
sorts and persuasions, strove to be foremost in the race of gratitude.
And when similar addresses came in from corporations, who had been
formerly anxious to shew their loyalty on the subject of the Rye-house
plot, the king's accession, and other occasions of triumph to the
Tories, the tone of these bodies also was wonderfully changed; and,
instead of raving against excluders, rebels, regicides, republicans,
and fanatics, whose hellish contrivances endeavoured to destroy the
safety of the kingdom, and the life of the king, these same gentlemen
mention the Sectaries as their brethren and fellow-subjects, to whom
the king, their common father, had been justly, liberally, royally
pleased to grant freedom of conscience, for which the addressers
offer their hearty and unfeigned thanks. These were the two classes
of persons, whom Dryden, as they had closed with the measures of
government, declares to be exempted from his satire. Those, therefore,
against whom it is avowedly directed, are first, the Church of England,
whose adherents saw her destruction aimed at through the pretence of
toleration. 2dly, Those Sectaries, who distrusted the boon which the
king presented, and feared that the consequences of this immediate
indulgence at the hands of an ancient enemy, would be purchased by
future persecution. These formed a body, small at first, but whose
numbers daily increased.
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