[In the following excerpt, Gransden suggests that Dryden regarded his poem Religio Laici as a satire in the classical tradition: one that would instruct his audiences rather than criticize or ridicule them.]

It is natural that recent critics of the Religio Laici have been more concerned to analyze Dryden's moral and theological position than to consider the poem's literary ancestry. Yet such an examination may be more than a sterile exercise in "influences," for it can illuminate Dryden's entire technique as a moral poet. Moreover, the two approaches are more fully complementary than is perhaps always realized. The moral position which Dryden takes up is one to which the genre he was writing in was traditionally accommodated. Further, an understanding of the poem's ancestry, which I shall approach through Dryden's own translations of the relevant classical poetry, emphasizes—what is again not always sufficiently appreciated—that his purpose in writing the poem was not primarily theoretical, but strongly practical.

Dryden's moral position in the poem has been clarified by a number of modern critics, notably E. J. Chiasson in "Dryden's Apparent Scepticism in Religio Laici," as belonging to "that tradition of Christian humanism which had, in varying degrees and with varying speculative and practical emphases, been common to patristic, medieval and renaissance Christendom." In the Life of Plutarch which he published in 1683 (the year after Religio Laici) Dryden had specifically attacked the "Pyrrhonians, or grosser sort of Scepticks, who bring all certainty into question." Extreme skepticism denies the existence of that "common ground" which Dryden in the Religio seeks to define and hold. In the Life of Plutarch Dryden maintains that "the Wise-men in all Ages, have not much differ'd in their opinions of Religion; I mean as it is grounded on human Reason: For Reason, as far as it is right, must be the same in all Men." The same point is made in the Religio: "Canst Thou, by Reason, more of God-head know/Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero?" The emphasis in both passages is on the concept of reason: of course we can know more of godhead, but only because we have access to revelation, while those who lived in what Donne in his third satire called "the first blinded age" of pagan moral philosophy did not. The combination in a single poem of a personal declaration of belief together with instruction on how to achieve happiness is first authoritatively established in Roman verse satire, to which genre Dryden's poem belongs. But the nature of this satiric tradition is complex, and there is some reason to believe that Dryden himself had not fully mastered it when he published the Religio. His own translations from Latin verse all appeared after 1682, though this is not, of course, to say that he was not previously familiar with the originals. But one particular discrepancy in Dryden's own account of the Religio and his later views on Latin verse satire is important. Dryden says in the preface to the Religio that it is in the style of Horace's Epistles. He also says, "The Expressions of a Poem, design'd purely for Instruction, ought to be Plain and Natural, and yet Majestick." Yet when, in 1693, in the Discourse on the Original and Progress of Satire, he sets out his mature views on satire, he does not conceal his dislike of Horace with his "perpetual grin" and his preference for Persius and Juvenal. Horace, he says, writes in a "low familiar style," while Persius and Juvenal are "sublime and majestic." In fact, almost the only Horatian feature of the Religio is its "throwaway" ending, a literary joke which is often felt to be at variance with, and to undercut, the rest of the poem.

In the Discourse on Satire Dryden praises Juvenal and Persius. The former is praised for preserving the rule that one should keep to "one principal Instructive Point," "one Precept of Moral Virtue," and should caution the reader against one particular vice or folly. "Other Virtues, subordinate to the first, may be recommended … and other Vices or Follies may be scourg'd…. But he is chiefly to inculcate one Virtue, and insist on that."

Dryden's admiration of Persius is expressed in one of the most eloquent tributes ever paid by one poet to another. It is in particular a tribute to a kind of moral seriousness and steadfastness: Persius "sticks to his one Philosophy: He shifts not sides, like Horace … Nor declaims like Juvenal against Vices…. Persius is everywhere the same…. There is a Spirit of sincerity in all he says." It seems clear that, from the standpoint of Dryden's subsequent and mature views on Roman satire, Religio Laici turned out to be a rather un-Horatian poem. Both its style and its urging of "one principal instructive point" place it in a literary tradition quite different from Horace's—a tradition of which Persius and Juvenal are the best-known representatives but whose origins are to be found in the work of another Latin poet whom Dryden translated even before he translated Persius and Juvenal—Lucretius.

Before we consider Lucretius as the founder of a tradition of satirical writing which was developed by Persius and Juvenal rather than Horace, we should note that it was the tenth satire of Juvenal (the "vanity of human wishes") which Dryden most admired: it is this poem above all of Juvenal's, and particularly its concluding peroration, which is in tone and spirit most Lucretian, for both are homiletic rather than "satirical" in the narrow and commonly adduced sense. Moreover, Juvenal's tenth satire is itself much indebted to Persius' second, as Dryden noted in the argument to his version of Persius. (One of Dryden's greatest strengths as a critic is his sense of literary tradition and continuity.) Dryden quotes with approval, in his Discourse, Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, who regarded the satires of Persius, together with Juvenal's tenth, as "Store-Houses and Magazines of Moral Virtues." Dryden's encomium of Persius must now be quoted at greater length:

Satire is of the nature of Moral Philosophy; as being instructive: He therefore, who instructs most Usefully, will carry the Palm…. The Philosophy in which Persius was Educated, and which he professes throughout his whole Book, is the Stoick: The most noble, most generous, most beneficial to Humane Kind, amongst all the Sects, who have given us the Rules of Ethiques, thereby to form a severe Virtue in the Soul; to raise in us an undaunted Courage, against the assaults of Fortune … to be always Happy, while we possess our Minds, with a good Conscience…. I will not lessen this Commendation of the Stoick Philosophy, by giving you an account of some Absurdities in their Doctrine, and some perhaps Impieties, if we consider them by the Standard of Christian Faith: Persius has faln into none of them…. What he teaches, might be taught from Pulpits, with more profit … than all the nice Speculations of Divinity, and Controversies concerning Faith…. Here is nothing propos'd but the quiet and tranquillity of Mind….

Dryden's last remark anticipates one made by Byron about the tenth satire of Juvenal: "I should think it might be redde with great effect to a man dying without much pain, in preference to all the stuff that ever was said or sung in churches."

It is clear from the quotations given above that the satirical tradition which Dryden most valued had as its chief aim, not to mock or castigate men, but to instruct them. Now it is true that Horace's Epistles, which are more reflective than his earlier Satires or Sermones, do contain much instructive matter. But their tone is wayward and their philosophical standpoint inconsistent, being now Stoic, now Epicurean: Horace actually boasts of this, saying that he will conform to no single doctrine but will keep an open mind. He remains subjective and uncommitted in his judgments. It is this which gives his poetry its unique autobiographical charm. Even his most orthodox sententiae are delivered in a tone of unmistakable eironeia: "uirtus est uitium fugere et sapientia prima/stultitia caruisse." But it is precisely these elements in Horace's poetry which are most alien to the purpose and manner of Religio Laici. Its magisterial authority and didactic purpose are proclaimed strongly throughout: "Thus have I made my own Opinions clear." Stylistically, Dryden places his poem in the "Horatian" tradition of the "low style" "as fittest for discourse and nearest prose"; yet it has escaped no admirer of the poem that certain passages in it, notably of course the opening lines (but also 152-167, 184-211), are written in a style, "majestic and divine," than which nothing less might appropriately set forth the God whose eternal laws the poem celebrates.

This discrepancy in tone between the expository and the emotional parts of the poem itself conforms to an established tradition of didactic poetry, and indeed of all ancient rhetoric. The low style was suited to exposition and information, and was used primarily for rational persuasion; the grand style was used to express emotional conviction; the former sought to carry the hearer by argument, the latter to sweep him off his feet.

The use of a mixture of styles to convey a moral message itself goes back to a popular homiletic tradition, that of the diatribe, in which philosophy was made palatable to the ordinary man. The most famous ancient exponent of the diatribe was Bion, whose wit was praised by Horace. A feature of the diatribe was that, as in a Platonic dialogue, there was an interlocutor or butt, whose objections were usually prefaced by the Greek word meaning "he says," and were then promptly demolished. This feature survives in the objectors of the Religio: "Oh but says one, Tradition set aside …" (1. 276). There is no doubt that the immediate ancestor of the satirical tradition in which Persius and Juvenal wrote was Lucretius. Not only does his De Rerum Natura consist of a mixture of styles, the "low" expository and the "high" emotional; but he also, like Persius and Juvenal, was concerned to put forward, with all the moral fervor at his command, a single, consistent philosophy which he believed would make men saner and happier if it were universally adopted. The De Rerum Natura is a didactic epic, not a satire; its aim, that is, is practical. But unlike other didactic epics, though its aim is practical its subject is not. Lucretius was not teaching about fanning or astronomy, but about "the nature of things." His poem includes much scientific exposition, for he was a believer in the atomic theory of Democritus, to which his master Epicurus gave allegiance. But the section of his poem which primarily concerns us is to be found in the third book. This ends with a long and eloquent consolatio designed to prove that man should not fear death. The aim of the consolatio was to encourage and fortify men against the contingencies of life by bringing together arguments which would console and comfort them. Naturally such arguments, to have any effect, must carry a strong emotional content; the writer must himself fervently believe what he preaches, and this is as true of pagan homiletic as of Christian sermons.

The emotional power of the conclusion of Juvenal's tenth satire is to be explained by the fact that it belongs, like the end of Lucretius III, to the tradition of the consolatio. Dryden himself translated the end of Lucretius HI and included it in his Sylvae (1685). If we now examine the Religio in the light of Dryden's Lucretius and Juvenal we shall find significant affinities of tone, phrase, and intention.

The theme of Juvenal's tenth satire is that, since we cannot know the future, all our hopes, fears, and desires are based on false reasoning: "quid enim ratione timemus/aut cupimus?" or as Dryden rendered it, "How void of Reason are our Hopes and Fears!" This idea reappears in the Religio as "Heav'n from humane Sense/Has hid the secret paths of Providence" (11. 186-187). Similarly, Lucretius in his third book seeks to convince man that he has nothing to fear (or to hope for) after death. But the stripping away of men's illusions and delusions can be a bleak process. "Human kind cannot bear very much reality." It is precisely for this reason that the technique and practice of the consolatio becomes relevant. For when you have taken away the illusions, what is left? Compare these passages from the concluding perorations of the Religio and Juvenal X:

What then remains, but, waving each Extreme,
The Tides of Ignorance and Pride to stem:
Neither so rich a Treasure to forgo;
Nor proudly seek beyond our pow'r to know?
Faith is not built on disquisitions vain;
The things we must believe, are few, and plain:
But since men will believe more than they need:
And every man will make himself a Creed:
In doubtful questions 'tis the safest way
To learn what unsuspected Antients say….
(R. L. 427-436)

The consolatio of Lucretius and Juvenal depended upon the enthronement of reason, man's highest faculty, above superstition. In producing a Christianized version of these consolations, Dryden had to enthrone faith above reason. But though the doctrine is thus changed, the rhetorical modes of inculcating it are not. Even the famous opening image, in which faith is the sun to reason's moon and stars, is a rhetorical commonplace which occurs in Lucretius III, where Epicurus is said to have excelled all men, Stellas exortus ut aetherius sol, or in Dryden's rendering, "As does the midday sun the midnight star." The figure also occurs in Donne's third satire, where truth is seen as self-evident yet incomprehensible, "like the Sunne, dazling, yet plaine to all eyes"; Dryden himself uses it again in The Hind and the Panther, in a well-known passage in which he argues that, if reason can be subordinated to faith, one should have even less trouble with the senses:

Can I my reason to my faith compell,
And shall my sight, and touch, and taste rebell?
Superior faculties are set aside,
Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,
And winking tapers shew the sun his way….

The common ground in all these passages is the search for a true guide to conduct: above all, this guide, when found, will give to man, amid a babble of confusing propaganda, what he most needs: contentment and peace. In the same way, Rochester's Satyr Against Reason and Mankind, for all its "Byronic" coat-trailing, has a serious didactic purpose: to argue that a vaunted rationality can confuse man's mind with too much speculation. Nevertheless, Rochester's poem called forth an immediate broadside response, an "Answer to the Satyr Against Mankind," in which Rochester's definition of reason is corrected by arguing that, if one has to choose between reason and sense, reason is "the less obnoxious and the surest guide."

The error of the rationalist is that he assumes reason has the same status in the age of faith or revelation as it had when its only rival in the field of apperception was the senses. The debate between reason and sense, a common topic in the Renaissance, is dramatized in Persius' third satire. Persius invents here an objector to the higher life, a bluff centurion who rejects reason and accepts only the evidence of the senses: "quod sapio satis est mihi." He of course is the typical objector of the diatribe, introduced only to have his arguments rejected later. By a witty paradox, Rochester turns the debate between reason and sense upside down, attacking man for preferring erring reason to sure instinct; he is able to do this because it was a Christian commonplace that human reason can be deceived—Milton bases Paradise Lost on this premise. At the same time, Rochester's use of paradox produces some disconcerting, if brilliant, inversions. Thus he puts into the mouth of an objector to his antirationalist thesis a splendid defence of reason which we are emotionally surprised to feel is going to have to be overruled:

Reason, by whose aspiring influence
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,
Search heav'n and hell, find out what's acted there,
And give the world true grounds of hope and fear.

This passage is closely modeled on some lines of Lucretius (I.72-77) describing how Epicurus solved the mysteries of the universe.

In the Religio Dryden describes various pre-Christian versions of the highest good, including that of the sensualists: his description is closely modeled on that of the sensualist in Persius' third satire:

But 'tis in vain: the Wretch is drench'd too deep;
His Soul is stupid, and his Heart asleep:
Fatten'd in Vice; so callous, and so gross;
He sins, and sees not; senseless of his Loss.
Down goes the Wretch at once; unskill'd to swim;
Hopeless to bubble up and reach the Water's Brim.
(Persius III. 59-64)

In Pleasure some their glutton Souls would steep;
But found the Line too short, the Well too deep;
And leaky Vessels which no Bliss cou'd keep.
(R. L. 33-35)

Again, in Lucretius III the voice of nature reproaches man for complaining about his mortality:

If all the bounteous blessings I cou'd give
Thou hast enjoy'd, if thou hast known to live,
And pleasure not leak'd thro' thee like a Seive,
Why dost thou not give thanks….

In this passage, Nature addresses man as "ungrateful wretch, thou vain, thou mortal thing…." In the Religio, Dryden reproaches man for trying to soar to heaven by his own strength rather than God's, and calls him "Vain, wretched Creature."

The central thesis of all these didactic homilies may be formulated thus: what man most wants—truth, certainty, peace—he is least able to discover:

Thus, Anxious Thoughts in endless Circles roul,
Without a Centre where to fix the Soul:

In this wilde Maze their vain Endeavours end:
How can the less the Greater comprehend?
(R. L. 36-39)

Eternal troubles haunt thy anxious mind,
Whose cause and cure thou never hop'st to find;
But still uncertain, with thy self at strife,
Thou wander'st in the Labyrinth of life.
(Lucretius III. 267-270)

The poet's aim is to comfort man in his bewilderment and to show him how to achieve "true grounds for hope and fear." Dryden's urging of public peace over private reason demands to be explained as a piece of practical consolation: as a theoretical position it is bound to seem unsatisfactory:

'Tis some Relief, that points not clearly known,
Without much hazard may be let alone:
And, after hearing what our Church can say,
If still our Reason runs another way,
That private Reason 'tis more Just to curb,
Than by Disputes the publick Peace disturb.
For points obscure are of small use to learn:
But Common quiet is Mankind's concern.
(R. L. 443-450)

We recall that in his praise of Persius Dryden wrote that "Here is nothing propos'd but the quiet and tranquillity of Mind." Tranquillity is similarly proposed by Juvenal at the end of his tenth satire as the reward of man if only he will trust Providence and Prudentia (Wisdom) rather than Fortune (the private god each man seeks to deify for his own individual ends): "semita certe/tranquillae per uirtutem patet unica uitae."

The same distinction between private reason and public wisdom is made by Dryden again in The Hind and The Panther, I, 62-69:

What weight of antient witness can prevail
If private reason hold the public scale?

…..

o teach me to believe Thee thus conceal'd,
And search no farther than thy self reveal'd.

If Dryden seems to some modern readers to be overstating his case, it is because he senses how easily the past, traditional wisdom, can be threatened and undermined. Religious, social, and political stability are closely linked in his thinking as in that of his classical predecessors. His conservatism, with its emphasis on quietism, outward conformity, avoidance of extremes, derives massive and valuable support from his literary classicism. The "unsuspected ancients" are of course the fathers of Christianity, but the phrase also invites us to consider the literary tradition on which Dryden's sense of a proper order so much depends. It is in this respect that the Religio affirms Dryden's literary as well as his religious adherence. Not only its form and structure, but its rhetorical techniques also, are modeled on just those Latin poems which could underwrite, with their immense prestige, his own urging of a sane and healthy approach to "the nature of things" and which could give to the commonplaces in which he rests a majesty and sublimity they might otherwise lack.