Dryden recurs to the object often, takes fresh sittings of nature, and gives us new strokes of character as well as of his pencil.  The Hind and Panther is an allegory as well as a satire; and so far it tells less home; the battery is not so point-blank.  But otherwise it has more genius, vehemence, and strength of description than any other of Dryden’s works, not excepting the Absalom and Achitophel.  It also contains the finest examples of varied and sounding versification.  I will quote the following as an instance of what I mean.  He is complaining of the treatment which the Papists, under James II. received from the church of England.

        “Besides these jolly birds, whose corpse impure
      Repaid their commons with their salt manure,
      Another farm he had behind his house,
      Not overstocked, but barely for his use;
      Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed,
      And from his pious hand “received their bread.” 
      Our pampered pigeons, with malignant eyes,
      Beheld these inmates, and their nurseries;
      Though hard their fare, at evening, and at morn,
      (A cruise of water, and an ear of corn,)
      Yet still they grudged that modicum, and thought
      A sheaf in every single grain was brought. 
      Fain would they filch that little food away,
      While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey;
      And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall,
      The bird that warned St. Peter of his fall;
      That he should raise his mitred crest on high,
      And clap his wings, and call his family
      To sacred rites; and vex the ethereal powers
      With midnight mattins at uncivil hours;
      Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest,
      Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. 
      Beast of a bird! supinely when he might
      Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light! 
      What if his dull forefathers us’d that cry,
      Could he not let a bad example die? 
      The world was fallen into an easier way: 
      This age knew better than to fast and pray. 
      Good sense in sacred worship would appear,
      So to begin as they might end the year. 
      Such feats in former times had wrought the falls
      Of crowing chanticleers in cloister’d walls. 
      Expell’d for this, and for their lands they fled;
      And sister Partlet with her hooded head
      Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed.”

There is a magnanimity of abuse in some of these epithets, a fearless choice of topics of invective, which may be considered as the heroical in satire.