Note 93 — THE PREFACE.

Dryden is not quite candid in his statement. In Stillingfleet's answer to the Duchess's paper, it is indeed called, the "paper said to be written by a great lady;" but there is not another word upon the authority, which, indeed, considering it was published under the king's immediate inspection, could not be very decorously disputed. Dryden seizes upon this phrase in his defence, and, coupling with it some expressions of the Bishop of Winchester, he argues that it was the intention of these sons of the church of England, to give the lie to their sovereign. In this vindication of the answer, Stillingfleet thus expresses himself: "As to the main design of the third paper, I declared, that I considered it, as it was supposed to contain the reasons and motives of the conversion of so great a lady to the church of Rome.

"But this gentleman has now eased me of the necessity of farther considering it on that account. For he declares, that none of those motives or reasons are to be found in the paper of her highness. Which he repeats several times. 'She writ this paper, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, &c.' 'As for her reasons, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last.'

"And so my work is at an end as to her paper. For I never intended to ransack the private papers or secret narratives of great persons; and I do not in the least question the relation now given from so great authority, as that he mentions of the passages concerning her; and therefore I have nothing more to say as to what relates to the person of the duchess."

It is obvious that Dryden, probably finding the divine too hard for him on the controversial part of the subject, affects to consider the dispute as entirely limited to the authenticity of the paper, which it cannot be supposed Stillingfleet ever seriously intended to impeach.