We have now reached a remarkable incident in our author’s life, namely, his conversion to the Catholic faith, which took place shortly after the accession of James II. to the British throne.  The biographer of Dryden must feel considerable difficulty in discussing the probable causes of his change.  Although this essay be intended to contain the life, not the apology of the poet, it is the duty of the writer to place such circumstances in view, as may qualify the strong prepossession at first excited by a change of faith against the individual who makes it.  This prepossession, powerful in every case, becomes doubly so, if the step be taken at a time when the religion adopted seems more readily to pave the way for the temporal prosperity of the proselyte.  Even where the grounds of conviction are ample and undeniable, we have a respect for those who suffer, rather than renounce a mistaken faith, when it is discountenanced or persecuted.  A brave man will least of all withdraw himself from his ancient standard when the tide of battle beats against it.  On the other hand, those who at such a period admit conviction to the better and predominant doctrine, are viewed with hatred by the members of the deserted creed, and with doubt by their new brethren in faith.  Many who adopted Christianity in the reign of Constantine were doubtless sincere proselytes, but we do not find that any of them have been canonised.  These feelings must be allowed powerfully to affect the mind, when we reflect that Dryden, a servant of the court and zealously attached to the person of James, to whom he looked for the reward of long and faithful service, did not receive any mark of royal favour until he professed himself a member of the religion for which that king was all but an actual martyr.  There are other considerations, however, greatly qualifying the conclusions which might be drawn from these suspicious circumstances, and tending to show, that Dryden’s conversion was at least in a great measure effected by sincere conviction.  The principal clew to the progress of his religious principles is to be found in the poet’s own lines in “The Hind and the Panther,” and may, by a very simple commentary, be applied to the state of his religious opinions at different periods of his life:—­

  “My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;
  My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
  Followed false lights, and, when their glimpse was gone,
  My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 
  Such was I, such by nature still I am;
  Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame!”

The “vain desires” of Dryden’s “thoughtless youth” require no explanation:  they obviously mean, that inattention to religious duties which the amusements of youth too frequently occasion.  The “false lights” which bewildered the poet’s manhood, were, I doubt not, the puritanical tenets, which, coming into the world under the auspices of his fanatical relations, Sir Gilbert Pickering and