Note 81 — THE HIND AND THE PANTHER.
Reading edition
The following is the commencement of his "Reflections on the Hind and Panther," in a letter to a friend, 1687:
"The present you have made me of "The Hind and Panther," is variously talked of here in the country. Some wonder what kind of champion the Roman Catholics have now gotten; for they have had divers ways of representing themselves; but this of rhyming us to death, is altogether new and unheard of, before Mr Bayes set about it; and, indeed, he hath done it in the sparkishest poem that ever was seen. 'Tis true, he hath written a great many things; but he never had such pure swiftness of thought, as in this composition, nor such fiery flights of fancy. Such hath always been his dramatical and scenical way of scribbling, that there was no post nor pillar in the town exempt from the pasting up of the titles of his plays; insomuch, that the footboys, for want of skill in reading, do now (as we hear) often bring away, by mistake, the title of a new book against the Church of England, instead of taking down the play for the afternoon. Yet, if he did it well or handsomely, he might deserve some pardon; but, alas! how ridiculously doth he appear in print for any religion, who hath made it his business to laugh at all! How can he stand up for any mode of worship, who hath been accustomed to bite, and spit his venom against the very name thereof?
"Wherefore, I cannot but wish our adversaries joy on their new-converted hero, Mr Bayes; whose principle it is to fight single with whole armies; and this one quality he prefers before all the moral virtues put together. The Roman Catholics may talk what they will, of their Bellarmine and Perrone, their Hector and Achilles, and I know not who; but I desire them all, to shew one such champion for the cause, as this Drawcansir: For he is the man that kills whole nations at once; who, as he never wrote any thing, that any one can imagine has ever been the practice of the world, so, in his late endeavours to pen controversy, you shall hardly find one word to the purpose. He is that accomplished person, who loves reasoning so much in verse, and hath got a knack of writing it smoothly. The subject (he treats of in this poem) did, in his opinion, require more than ordinary spirit and flame; therefore, he supposed it to be too great for prose; for he is too proud to creep servilely after sense; so that, in his verse, he soars high above the reach of it. To do this, there is no need of brain, 'tis but scanning right; the labour is in the finger, not in the head.
"However, if Mr Bayes would be pleased to abate a little of the exuberancy of his fancy and wit; to dispense with his ornaments and superfluencies of invention and satire, a man might consider, whether he should submit to his argument; but take away the railing, and no argument remains; so that one may beat the bush a whole day, and, after so much labour, only spring a butterfly, or start a hedge-hog.
"For all this, is it not great pity to see a man, in the flower of his romantic conceptions, in the full vigour of his studies on love and honour, to fall into such a distraction, as to walk through the thorns and briars of controversy, unless his confessor hath commanded it, as a penance for some past sins? that a man, who hath read Don Quixote for the greatest part of his life, should pretend to interpret the Bible, or trace the footsteps of tradition, even in the darkest ages?"—Four Letters, &c.