distinction.

And so, thinking himself now ripe and qualified for the greatest undertakings and highest fortune, he therefore exchanged the narrowness of the university for the town; but coming out of the confinement of the square cap and the quadrangle into the open air, the world began to turn round with him, which he imagined, though it were his own giddiness, to be nothing less than the quadrature of the circle. This accident concurring so happily to increase the good opinion which he naturally had of himself, he thenceforward applied to gain a like reputation with others. He followed the town life, haunted the best companies; and, to polish himself from any pedantic roughness, he read and saw the plays with much care, and more proficiency than most of the auditory. But all this while he forgot not the main chance; but hearing of a vacancy with a nobleman, he clapped in, and easily obtained to be his chaplain: from that day you may take the date of his preferments and his ruin; for having soon wrought himself dexterously into his patron's favour, by short graces and sermons, and a mimical way of drolling upon the Puritans, which he knew would take both at chapel and at table, he gained a great authority likewise among all the domestics. They all listened to him as an oracle; and they allowed him, by common consent, to have not only all the divinity, but more wit, too, than all the rest of the family put together. Nothing now must serve him, but he must be a madman in print, and write a book of Ecclesiastical Polity. There he distributes all the territories of conscience into the prince's province, and makes the hierarchy to be but bishops of the air; and talks at such an extravagant rate in things of higher concernment, that the reader will avow that in the whole discourse he had not one lucid interval.'*

The work here mentioned, the Ecclesiastical Polity,' was published in the year 1670. But the book which called forth Marvell, was a Preface to a posthumous work of Archbishop Bramhall's, which

* Rehearsal Transprosed, vol. i. pp. 62–69.

appeared in 1672. In this piece, Parker had displayed his usual zeal against the nonconformists, with more than usual acrimony, and pushed to the uttermost extravagance his favourite maxims of ecclesiastical tyranny. Like his previous works on similar matters, it was anonymous, though the author was pretty well known. Marvell dubs him 'Mr. Bayes,' under which name the Duke of Buckingham had ridiculed Dryden in the well-known play of the 'Rehearsal;' from the title of which Marvell designated his book, 'The Rehearsal Transprosed.' The latter word was suggested by the scene in which Mr. Bayes gives an account of the manner in which he manufactured his plays: Bayes'Why, sir, my first rule is the rule of transversion, or regula duplex, -changing verse into prose, or prose into verse, alternativè, as you please.' Smith-Well, but how is this done by rule, sir?' Bayes-Why thus, sir; nothing so easy when understood. I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere, for that's all one: if there be any wit in't, as there is no book but has some, I transverse it; that is, if it be prose put it into verse, (but that takes up some time,) and if it be verse put it into prose.' Johnson Methinks, Mr. Bayes, that putting verse into prose should be called transprosing.' Bayes-‘By my troth, sir, 'tis a very good notion, and hereafter it shall be so.'

The success of the 'Rehearsal' was instant and signal. After Parker had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books,' says Burnet, 'he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who wrote in a burlesque strain, but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct, that, from the King down to the tradesman, his books were read with great pleasure that not only humbled Parker but the whole

party; for the author of the 'Rehearsal Transprosed' had all the men of wit, (or, as the French phrase it, all the laughers,) on his side.'

In fact, Marvell exhibited his adversary in so ridiculous a light, that even his own party could not keep their countenances. The unhappy churchman resembled Gulliver at the court of Brobdignag, when the mischievous page stuck him into the marrow-bone. He cut such a ridiculous figure, that, says the author just cited, even the King and his courtiers could not help laughing at him.

The first part of the 'Rehearsal' elicited several answers. They were written for the most part in very unsuccessful imitation of Marvell's style of banter, and are now wholly forgotten. Marvell gives an amusing account of the efforts which were made to obtain effective replies, and of the hopes of preferment which may be supposed to have inspired their authors. Parker himself for some time declined any reply. At last came out his 'Reproof to the Rehearsal Transprosed,' in which he urged the Government to crush the pestilent wit, the servant of Cromwell, and the friend of Milton.' To this work, Marvell replied in the second part of the 'Rehearsal.' He was further spirited to it by an anonymous letter, pleasant and laconic enough, left for him at a friend's house, signed 'T. G.,' and concluding with the words If thou darest to print any lie or libel against Dr. Parker, by the eternal God, I will cut thy throat!' He who wrote it, whoever he was, was ignorant of Marvell's nature, if he thought thereby to intimidate him into silence. His intrepid spirit was simply provoked by this insolent threat, which he took care to publish in the titlepage of his Reply. To this publication Parker attempted no rejoinder. Anthony Wood himself tells us, that

Parker judged it more prudent to lay down the cudgels, than to enter the lists again with an untowardly combatant, so hugely well-versed and experienced in the then but newly refined art, though much in mode and fashion ever since, of sporting and jeering buffoonery. It was generally thought, however, by many of those who were otherwise favourers of Parker's cause, that the victory lay on Marvell's side, and it wrought this good effect on Parker, that for ever after it took down his great spirit:' and Burnet tells us, that he withdrew from the town, and ceased writing for some years.'

Of this, the principal work of Marvell's singular genius, it is difficult, even were there space for it, to present the reader with any considerable extracts. The allusions are often so obscure the wit of one page is so dependent on that of another-the humour and plesantry are so continuous-and the character of the work, from its very nature, is so excursive, that its merits can be appreciated only on a regular perusal. There are other reasons, too, which render lengthened citations scarcely practicable. The composition has faults which would inevitably disgust the generality of modern readers, or rather deter them altogether from giving any long extracts a continuous perusal. The work is also characterised by not a little of the coarseness which was so prevalent in that age, and from which Marvell was by no means free; though, as we shall endeavour hereafter to show, his spirit was far from partaking of the malevolence of ordinary satirists. Some few instances of felicitous repartee or ludicrous imagery, which we have noted in a reperusal of the work, will be found further on.

Yet the reader must not infer that the sole, or even the chief, merit of the 'Rehearsal Transprosed' con

sists in wit and banter. Not only is there, amidst all its ludicrous levities, 'a vehemence of solemn reproof, and an eloquence of invective, that awes one with the spirit of the modern Junius;'* but there are many passages of very powerful reasoning, in advocacy of truths which were then but ill understood, and of rights which had been shamefully violated.

Perhaps the most interesting passages of the work are those in which Marvell refers to his great friend, John Milton. Parker, with his customary malignity, had insinuated that the poet, who was then living in cautious retirement, might have been the author of the 'Rehearsal'-apparently with the view of turning the indignation of Government upon the illustrious recluse. Marvell had always entertained towards Milton a feeling of reverence akin to idolatry, and this stroke of deliberate malice was more than he could bear. He generously hastened to throw his shield over his aged and prostrate patron.

About three years after the publication of the second part of the Rehearsal,' Marvell's chivalrous love of justice impelled him again to draw the sword. In 1675, Dr. Croft, Bishop of Hereford, had published a work entitled, 'The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church, by a Humble Moderator.' This work deserved the character of that sermon which Corporal Trim shook out of the volume of Stevinus. 'If you have no objections,' said Mr. Shandy to Dr. Slop, Trim shall read it.' 'Not in the least,' replied Dr. Slop, for it does not appear on which side of the question it is wrote; it may be a composition of a divine of our church, as well as of yours, so that we run equal risks.' 'Tis wrote upon neither side,' quoth

* D'Israeli.