ABSTRACT
Date and publication. D. says in the prefatory epistle ‘To the Reader’ (ll. 74–5) that HP ‘was written during the last winter and the beginning of this spring’, i.e. the winter and spring of 1686–7, and was finished about a fortnight after the publication of James II’s Declaration on 4 April (for this see below under Context). Tonson’s staying entry in SR on 12 January 1687 (‘that noe person enter the poem called the Hinde and ye Panther’) suggests that the poem was well advanced by then; it was licensed on 11 April. D.’s epistle ‘To the Reader’ cites an address published on 2 May (see ll. 43–4n), so the epistle must have been written after that date. Scott thought that because the portrait of the Pigeons (the Anglican clergy; iii 946–90) is sharper than that of the Panther (the Church of England in general) it may have been added after the Declaration, once James had abandoned hopes of conciliating the Anglican hierarchy; but Kinsley rightly comments that D. was never greatly impressed by clergy of any persuasion. Noyes thought that the references to the penal laws (ii 268; iii 380–1, 633–4) were unrevised elements predating the Declaration, which suspended those laws; but Kinsley again points out that the moderate Catholic party to which D. belonged regarded the suspension as only a temporary respite from the threat of persecution. Kinsley himself plausibly suggests that iii 811–12, 892–7 and 1233–55 are likely to have been added after the Declaration. Miner in Works proposes that the passage on the Buzzard (iii 1120–94) may have been added or modified at a very late stage. Two country houses have traditionally claimed to be the place where D. composed the poem: (i) Ugbrooke, Devon, home of Lord Treasurer Clifford, which had a private chapel where Catholic services were permitted; (ii) Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, owned by Viscount Cullen; for these see Osborn 219–20. Winn 612 suggests that D. sought the country air for his health (see ‘To the Reader’ l. 76n) in the autumn of 1686.
