and was occasioned by the striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against the earl of Shaftsbury for high treason being found ignoramus by the grand jury, at the Old Bailey, November 1681:  For which the Whig party made great rejoicings by ringing of bells, bonfires, &c. in all parts of London.  The poem is introduced with a very satirical epistle to the Whigs, in which the author says, ’I have one favour to desire you at parting, that when you think of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel, for then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory without the least reply.  Rail at me abundantly, and not break a custom to do it with wit.  By this method you will gain a considerable point, which is wholly to wave the answer of my arguments.  If God has not blessed you with the talent of rhiming, make use of my poor stock and welcome; let your verses run upon my feet, and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines against me, and in utter despair of my own satire, make me satirize myself.’  The whole poem is a severe invective against the earl of Shaftsbury; who was uncle to that earl who wrote the Characteristics.  Mr. Elkanah Settle wrote an answer to this poem, entitled the Medal Reversed.  However contemptible Settle was as a poet, yet such was the prevalence of parties at that time, that, for some years, he was Dryden’s rival on the stage.  In 1682 came out his Religio Laici, or a Layman’s Faith; this piece is intended as a defence of revealed religion, and the excellency and authority of the scriptures, as the only rule of faith and manners, against Deists, Papists, and Presbyterians.  He acquaints us in the preface, that it was written for an ingenious young gentleman, his friend; upon his translation of Father Simons’s Critical History of the Old Testament, and that the stile of it was epistolary.

In 1684 he published a translation of M. Maimbourg’s.  History of the League, in which he was employed by the command of King Charles ii. on account of the plain parallel between the troubles of France, and those of Great Britain.  Upon the death of Charles ii. he wrote his Threnodia Augustalis, a Poem, sacred to the happy memory of that Prince.  Soon after the accession of James ii. our author turned Roman Catholic, and by this extraordinary step drew upon himself abundance of ridicule from wits of the opposite faction; and in 1689 he wrote a Defence of the Papers, written by the late King of blessed memory, found in his strong box.  Mr. Dryden, in the abovementioned piece, takes occasion to vindicate the authority of the Catholic Church, in decreeing matters of faith, upon this principle, that the church is more visible than the scriptures, because the scriptures are seen by the church, and to abuse the reformation in England, which he affirms was erected on the foundation