And when Dryden became a convert to the Catholic faith, he was, we have seen, involved in an immediate and furious controversy with the clergy of the Church of England.  Thus, an unbeseeming strain of raillery, adopted in wantonness, became aggravated, by controversy, into real dislike and animosity.  But Dryden, in the “Character of a Good Parson,” seems determined to show that he could estimate the virtue of the clerical order.  He undertook the task at the instigation of Mr. Pepys, the founder of the Library in Magdalen College, which bears his name;[40] and has accomplished it with equal spirit and elegance; not forgetting, however, to make his pattern of clerical merit of his own jacobitical principles.

Another very pleasing performance, which entered [into] the Miscellany called “The Fables,” is the epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, the poet’s cousin.  The letters to Mrs. Steward show the friendly intimacy in which the relations had lived, since the opposition of the Whigs to King William’s government in some degree united that party in conduct, though not in motive, with the favourers of King James.  Yet our author’s strain of politics, as at first expressed in the epistle, was too severe for his cousin’s digestion.  Some reflections upon the Dutch allies, and their behaviour in the war, were omitted, as tending to reflect upon King William; and the whole piece, to avoid the least chance of giving offence, was subjected to the revision of Montague, with a deprecation of his displeasure, an entreaty of his patronage, and the humiliating offer, that, although repeated correction had already purged the spirit out of the poem, nothing should stand in it relating to public affairs. without Mr. Montague’s permission.  What answer “full-blown Bufo” returned to Dryden’s petition, does not appear; but the author’s opposition principles were so deeply woven in with the piece, that they could not be obliterated without tearing it to pieces.  His model of an English member of parliament votes in opposition, as his Good Parson is a nonjuror, and the Fox in the fable of Old Chaucer is translated into a puritan.[41] The epistle was highly acceptable to Mr. Driden of Chesterton, who acknowledged the immortality conferred on him, by “a noble present,” which family tradition states to have amounted to L500.[42] Neither did Dryden neglect so fair an opportunity to avenge himself on his personal, as well as his political adversaries.  Milbourne and Blackmore receive in the epistle severe chastisement for their assaults upon his poetry and private character: 

  “What help from art’s endeavours can we have? 
  Guibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save;
  But Maurus sweeps whole parishes, and peoples every grave,
  And no more mercy to mankind will use
  Than when he robbed and murdered Maro’s muse. 
  Wouldst thou be soon despatched, and perish whole,
  Trust Maurus with thy life, and Milbourne with thy soul”