And drank a sober draught; the rest, amazed,
Stood mutely still, and on the stranger gazed;
Surveyed her part by part, and sought to find
The ten-horned monster in the harmless Hind.
Such as the Wolf and Panther had designed. †
They thought at first they dreamed; for twas offence
With them, to question certitude of sense,
Their guide in faith: but nearer when they drew,
And had the faultless object full in view,
Lord, how they all admired her heavenly hue!
Some, who, before, her fellowship disdained,
Scarce, and but scarce, from in-born rage restrained,
Now frisked about her, and old kindred feigned.
Whether for love or interest, every sect
Of all the savage nation shewed respect.
The viceroy Panther could not awe the herd;
The more the company, the less they feared.
The surly Wolf with secret envy burst,
Yet could not howl; (the Hind had seen him first;)
But what he durst not speak, the Panther durst.
For when the herd, sufficed, did late repair
To ferny heaths, and to their forest lair,
She made a mannerly excuse to stay,
Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way;

+ The ten-horned monster, in the Revelations, was usually explained by the reformers as typical of the church of Rome.

There was a classical superstition, that, if a wolf saw a man before he saw the wolf, the person lost his voice:

-voxque Marin

Jam fugit ipsa: lupi Mærin videre priores.

Dryden has adopted, in the text, the converse of this superstitious belief.

That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.
With much good-will the motion was embraced,
To chat a while on their adventures passed;
Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot
Her friend and fellow-sufferer in the plot. †
Yet wondering how of late she grew estranged,
Her forehead cloudy, and her countenance changed,
She thought this hour the occasion would present,
To learn her secret cause of discontent;

Which well she hoped, might be with ease redressed,

Considering her a well-bred civil beast,
And more a gentlewoman than the rest.
After some common talk what rumours ran,
The lady of the spotted muff began.

+ Although the Roman Catholic plot was made the pretence of persecuting the Papists in the first instance, yet the high-flying party of the Church of England were also levelled at, and accused of being Tantivies, Papists in masquerade, &c. &c.

NOTES

ON

THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.

PART I.

Note I.

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.---P. 119.

The critics fastened on this line with great exultation, concluding, that doomed and fated mean precisely the same thing. "Faith, Mr Bayes," says one of these gentlemen, "if you were doomed to be hanged, whatever you were fated to 'twould give you but small comfort."* This criticism is quite erroneous; doom, in its general acceptation, meaning merely a sentence of any kind, the pronouncing which by no means necessarily implies its execution. In the criminal courts of Scotland, the sentence is always concluded with this formula, "and this I pronounce for doom." Till of late years, a special officer recited the sentence after the judge, and was thence called the doomster, † an office now performed by the clerk of court. The criticism is founded on the word doom having been often, and even generally, used as synonimous to the sentence of heaven, and therefore inevitable. But in the text, it

*Hind and Panther Transversed.

This office was usually held by the executioner, who, to this extent, was a pluralist; and the change was chiefly made, to prevent the necessity of producing that person in court, to the aggravation of the criminal's terrors.

is obvious that the doom, or sentence, of an earthly tribunal is placed in opposition to the decree of Providence.

Note II.

The bloody Bear, an independent beast,
Unlicked to forms, &c.---P. 120.

The sect of Independents arose to great eminence in the civil wars, when the enthusiastic spirits were deemed entitled to preferment upon earth, in proportion to the extravagance of their religious zeal. Hume has admirably described their leading tenets, or rather the scorn with which they discarded the principles of other religious sects; for their peculiarities consisted much more in their neglect and contempt of all forms, than in any rules or dogmata of their own.

"The Independents rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, and would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors, no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed, within itself, a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction, but one destitute of temporal sanctions, over its own pastor and its own members. The election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and, as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands, was, as in all other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthu siasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office. The fanaticism of the Independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every ceremony, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervours of zeal, and guided by the illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse and communication with hea→ ven."

Butler thus describes the Independents:

The Independents, whose first station

Was in the rear of reformation:

A mongrel kind of church dragoons,
That served for horse and foot at once,

And in the saddle of one steed,

The Saracen and Christian rid,

Were free of every spiritual order,

To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder.

It is well known, that these sectaries obtained the final ascendancy in the civil wars. Cromwell, their chief, was highly gifted as a preacher as well as a warrior; witness his " learned, devout, and conscientious exercise, held at Sir Peter Temple's, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon Romans xiii. 1."

•Note III.

Among the timorous kind, the quaking Hare
Professed neutrality, but would not swear.-P. 120.

As Mr Hume's account of the rise of this sect (the quakers) is uncommonly lively, I take the liberty to insert it at length; though, perhaps, the passage does not call for so prolonged a quotation. After describing the ascetic solitude of George Fox, their founder, he proceeds:

"When he had been sufficiently consecrated, in his own imagination, he felt that the fumes of self-applause soon dissipate, if not continually supplied by the admiration of others; and he began to seek proselytes. Proselytes were easily gained, at a time when all men's affections were turned towards religion, and when extravagant modes of it were sure to be most popular. All the forms of ceremony, invented by pride and ostentation, Fox and his disciples, from a superior pride and ostentation, carefully rejected: Even the ordinary rites of civility were shunned, as the nourishment of carnal vanity and self-conceit. They would bestow no titles of distinction: The name of friend was the only salutation with which they indiscriminately accosted every one. To no person would they make a bow, or move their hat, or give any signs of reverence. Instead of that affected adulation introduced into modern tongues, of speaking to individuals as if they were a multitude, they returned to the simplicity of ancient languages; and thou and thee were the only expressions which, on any consideration, they would be brought to employ.

"Dress too, a material circumstance, distinguished the members of this sect. Every superfluity and ornament was carefully retrenched: No plaits to their coat, no buttons to their sleeves: No lace, no ruffles, ro embroidery. Even a button to the hat, though sometimes useful, yet not being always so, was universally rejected by them with horror and detestation.

"The violent enthusiasm of this sect, like all high passions, being too strong for the weak nerves to sustain, threw the preachers into convulsions, and shakings, and distortions in their limbs; and they thence received the appellation of Quakers. Amidst