affirms, that Dryden’s pension was withdrawn, on account of his share in the Essay on Satire, he only shows that his veracity is on a level with his poverty[2].  The truth seems to be, that Dryden partook in some degree of the general ferment which the discovery of the Popish Plot had excited; and we may easily suppose him to have done so without any impeachment to his monarchial tenets, since North himself admits, that at the first opening of the plot, the chiefs of the loyal party joined in the cry.  Indeed, that mysterious transaction had been investigated by none more warmly than by Danby, the king’s favourite minister, and a high favourer of the prerogative.  Even when writing Absalom and Achitophel, our author by no means avows an absolute disbelief of the whole plot, while condemning the extraordinary exaggerations, by which it had been rendered the means of much bloodshed and persecution[3].  It seems, therefore, fair to believe, that, without either betraying or disguising his own principles, he chose, as a popular subject for the drama, an attack upon an obnoxious priesthood, whom he, in common with all the nation, believed to have been engaged in the darkest intrigues against the king and government.  I am afraid that this task was the more pleasing, from that prejudice against the clergy, of all countries and religions, which, as already noticed, our author displays, in common with other wits of that licentious age[4].  The character of the Spanish Friar was not, however, forgotten, when Dryden became a convert to the Roman Catholic persuasion; and, in many instances, as well as in that just quoted, it was assumed as the means of fixing upon him a charge of inconsistency in politics, and versatility in religion[5].

The tragic part of the “Spanish Friar” has uncommon merit.  The opening of the Drama, and the picture of a besieged town in the last extremity, is deeply impressive, while the description of the noise of the night attack, and the gradual manner in which the intelligence of its success is communicated, arrests the attention, and prepares expectation for the appearance of the hero, with all the splendour which ought to attend the principal character in tragedy.  The subsequent progress of the plot is liable to a capital objection, from the facility with which the queen, amiable and virtuous, as we are bound to suppose her, consents to the murder of the old dethroned monarch.  We question if the operation of any motive, however powerful, could have been pleaded with propriety, in apology for a breach of theatrical decorum, so gross, and so unnatural.  But, in fact, the queen is only actuated by a sort of reflected ambition, a desire to secure to her lover a crown, which she thought in danger; but which, according to her own statement, she only valued on his account.  This is surely too remote and indirect a motive, to urge a female to so horrid a crime.  There is also something vilely cold-hearted, in her attempt to turn the guilt