There will always be a strong presumption against the sincerity of a conversion by which the convert is directly a gainer.

In the case of Dryden there is nothing to countervail this presumption.
His theological writings abundantly prove that he had never sought with diligence and anxiety to learn the truth, and that his knowledge both of the Church which he quitted and of the Church which he entered was of the most superficial kind.

Nor was his subsequent conduct that of a man whom a strong sense of duty had constrained to take a step of awful importance.

Had he been such a man, the same conviction which had led him to join the Church of Rome would surely have prevented him from violating grossly and habitually rules which that Church, in common with every other Christian society, recognises as binding.

There would have been a marked distinction between his earlier and his later compositions.