Note 84 — CONTROVERSY BETWEEN DRYDEN AND STILLINGFLEET, CONCERNING THE DUCHESS OF YORK’S PAPER. (continued 2)

This assertion Stillingfleet denied. See the conclusion of his Answer to the Defence, where he affirms “such a book had been lately published in London.” To this Dryden replied, that “the magnified piece of Duncombe on this subject, which his opponent must have meant, was stolen, or translated, without acknowledgment, from the Spanish of Rodriguez;” meaning, probably, the Jesuit Alonso Rodriguez, who wrote “Exercio de perfecion y Virtudes Christianas, Sevilla, 1609.” But while Dryden claimed for the Catholic church the merit of this work, he seems to have mistaken the name of the translator; for in the preface to the “Town and Country Mouse,” Prior, or Montague, upbraid him with having confounded Allen with Duncombe; names which did not so much as rhyme. In a list of books subjoined to “The Practice of a Holy Life, by Thomas Allen, rector of Kettering, in Northamptonshire,” I find “The Virtue of Humility, recommended to be printed by the late Reverend and Learned Dr Henry Hammond,” which may be the book alluded to by Stillingfleet. See Vol. X. pages 114. 249.