This
circumstance is also mentioned by Burnet, who adds, in very coarse and
abusive terms, that the success of his own remarks having destroyed the
character of Varillas as an historian, the disappointed translator
revenged himself by the severe character of the Buzzard, under which the
future Bishop of Sarum is depicted in "The Hind and the Panther."[14]
The credulity of Burnet, especially where his vanity was concerned was
unbounded; and there seems room to trace Dryden's attack upon him,
rather to some real or supposed concern in the controversy about the
Duchess of York's papers, so often alluded to in the poem, than to the
commentary on Varillas, which is not once mentioned. Yet it seems
certain that Dryden entertained thoughts of translating "The History of
Heresies;" and, for whatever reason, laid the task aside. He soon after
was engaged in a task, of a kind as unpromising as remote from his
poetical studies, and connected, in the same close degree, with the
religious views of the unfortunate James II. This was no other than the
translation of "The Life of St. Francis Xavier," one of the last adopted
saints of the Catholic Church, at least whose merits and supposed
miracles were those of a missionary. Xavier is perhaps among the latest
also, whose renown for sanctity, and the powers attending it, appears to
have been extensive even while he was yet alive.[15] Above all, he was
of the order of Jesuits, and the very saint to whom Mary of Este had
addressed her vows, in hopes to secure a Catholic successor to the
throne of England.
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