The Hind and the Panther Author:John Dryden General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1900 Original Publisher: Macmillan Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there... more » may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION. The Hind and the Panther was licensed on the llth of April, 1687, and was published a few days after by Jacob Tonson. It is important to notice the date with reference to the Declaration of Indulgence, which had appeared on the 4th of April in the same year. The poem is in form, as the title indicates, an animal , in which the Hind and the Panther play the chief parts -- the former representing the Roman Catholic Church, the latter the Church of England. The Hind was chosen as the emblem of grace, purity, and innocence!)/ Dryden, who was thoroughly versed in the language of the J Authorized Version of the Bible, which he uses so freely [ and with such effect throughout the poem, may have been influenced in his choice by the scriptural conception of the Hind as suggested by such passages as "Naphtali is a hind let loose : he giveth goodly words " (Gen. xlix. 21); "He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places " (II. Sam. xxii. 34; Ps. xviii. 33; Hab. iii. 19); "Let her be, as the loving hind and pleasant roe " (Prov. v. 19). LThe Panther, according to the old derivation, was so called " because it has the fierceness of all beasts put together,'jjind hieroglyphi- cally, we are told, it represents "hypocrisy and deceit." Scott quotes a passage from one of the Fathers to the effect that panthers are naturally inspired by such monstrous and savage hatred against mankind that they furiously atta...« less