James did not care for poets at all, and a Protestant poet could sing nothing that could please him. So bigotted was he to his own creed, that mere political partizanship, however earnest or able, would not suffice. Nothing, therefore, remained for Dryden but to turn Papist; and he accordingly did so. This is the view expressed in language clearer and more forcible in Mr. Macaulay's "History of England."
By others, it is asserted that Dryden, at this particular time, was induced to read the controversy between the rival Churches, and that he was sincerely convinced by the Romish disputants, that his making this change at a moment when it was to his advantage, was a matter of accident rather than of design. Dr. Johnson states the case for Dryden with exquisite clearness and plausibility. "That conversion will always be suspected that apparently concurs with interest. He that never finds his error till it hinders his progress towards wealth or honour, will not be thought to love Truth only for herself. Yet it may easily happen that information may come at a commodious time; and as truth and interest are not, by any fatal necessity, at variance, that one may by accident introduce the other. When opinions are struggling into popularity, the arguments by which they are opposed or defended become more known; and he that changes his profession would perhaps have changed it before, with the like opportunities of instruction. This was the then state of Popery. Every artifice was used to show it in its fairest form; and it must be owned to be a religion of external appearance sufficiently attractive."
As has been observed, the most prominent characteristic of the man was his aversion to priests of all religions. The moment he broke away from the fetters of his early connection with Puritanism, he seems to have disliked that system, as a man who is a free-thinker must do. When he
