No More Learning

He had learned how to erect a thesis^ and to defend it

pro and con with a serviceable 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 thence-
forward 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
Tacancy with a nobleman, he clapped in, and easily

* Rehtanal Trcmproted, vol. ii. pp. 77, 78.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



NOTICE OP THE AUTHOR. XXXX

obtained to be his chaplain ; from that day you may
take the date of his pi*cfennent8 and his ruin; for
having soon wrought -himself dexterously into his pa-
tron's favour, by short gracos 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 distri-
butes 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, his J^cclesiasttcal
Polity, was published in the year 1670. But the
book which called forth Marvell, was a Preface
• to a posthumous work of Archbishop Bramhairs,
which appeared in 1672. In this piece Parker
had displayed his usual zeal against the Non-
conformists with more than usual acrimony, and
pushed to the uttermost extravagance his fa-
vourite maxims of ecclesiastical tyranny.
Like
his previous works on similar matters, it was
anonymous, though the author was pretty well

♦ Rehearsal Trainprosed^ vol. i. pp. 62-69.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



XXXll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

known. Marvell dubs him " Mr. Bayes," under
which name the Duke of Buckingham had ridi-
culed Dryden in the well-known play of the
Rehearsal ; from the title of which Marvell de-
signated his book, The Rehearsal Transprosed.

The success of the Rehearsal was instant and
signal. " After Parker had for some years en-
tertained 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 ridi-
culous figure, that, says the author, 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 MarvelFs style
of banter, and are now wholly forgotten. Mar-



Digitized by VjOOQIC



NOTICE OF THE ALTIIOR.