"
About three years after the publication of the
second part of the Behears
the sword.
About three years after the publication of the
second part of the Behears
the sword.
Marvell - Poems
He generously hastened to throw his
shield over his aged and prostrate patron.
** J. M. was, and is, a man of great learning and
sharpness of wit as any man. It was his misfortune,
living in a tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong
side, and he writ, flagrante BeUo, certain dangerous
treatises of no other nature than that which I men-
tioned to you writ by your own father, only with this
difference, that your father's, which I have by me, was
written with the same design, but with much less wit
or judgment. At his Majesty's happy return, J. M.
did partake, even as you yourself did, of his regal
clemency, and has ever since lived in a most retired
* D^Israeli.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
XXXVl NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.
silence. It was after that, I well remember it, that
being one day at his house, I there first met you ac-
cidentally. But there it was, when you, as I told you,
wandered up and down Moorfields, astrologizing on
the duration of his Majesty's government, that you
frc((uentcd J. M. incessantly, and haunted his house
day by day. What discourses you there used he is
too generous to remember.
"
About three years after the publication of the
second part of the Behears
the sword. In 1675, Dr. Croft, Bishop of Here-
ford, had published a work entitled " The Naked
Truth, or the true state of the Primitive Church,
by a humble Moderator. " It enjoined on all
religious parties the unwelcome duties of forbear-
ance and charity; but as it especially exposed
the danger and folly of enforcing a minute uni-
formity, it could not be suffered to pass unchal-
lenged in that age of high church intolerance. It
was petulantly attacked by Dr. Francis Turner,
Master of St John's College, Cambridge, in a
pamphlet entitled '* Animadversions on the Naked
Truth. " This provoked our satirist, who replied
in a pamphlet entitled, "Mr. Smirke, or the
Divine in Mode. " He here fits his antagonist
with a character out of Etherege's "Man of
Mode " — ^as he had before fitted Parker with one
from Buckingham's " Rehearsal. " The merits
and defects of this pamphlet are of much the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXVll
same order as those of his former work — it is
perliaps less disfigured by coarseness and vehe-
mence. Of Dr. Croft's pamphlet, he beautifully
expresses a feeling, of which we imagine few of
us can have been unconscious when perusing any
work which strongly appeals to our reason and
conscience, and in which, as we proceed, we seem
to recognize what we have often thought, but
never uttered. " It is a book of that kind, that
no Christian can peruse it without wishing him-
self to have been the author, and almost imagin-
ing that he is so ; the conceptions therein being
of so eternal an idea, that every man finds it to
be but a copy of the original in his own mind. "
To this little brochure was attached, "A Short
Historical Essay concerning General Councils,
Creeds, and Impositions in matters of Religion. "
It is characterized by the same strong sense and
untiring vivacity as his other writings, and evinces
a creditable acquaintance with ecclesiastical his-
tory ; but it is neither copious nor profound
enough for the subject.
shield over his aged and prostrate patron.
** J. M. was, and is, a man of great learning and
sharpness of wit as any man. It was his misfortune,
living in a tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong
side, and he writ, flagrante BeUo, certain dangerous
treatises of no other nature than that which I men-
tioned to you writ by your own father, only with this
difference, that your father's, which I have by me, was
written with the same design, but with much less wit
or judgment. At his Majesty's happy return, J. M.
did partake, even as you yourself did, of his regal
clemency, and has ever since lived in a most retired
* D^Israeli.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
XXXVl NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.
silence. It was after that, I well remember it, that
being one day at his house, I there first met you ac-
cidentally. But there it was, when you, as I told you,
wandered up and down Moorfields, astrologizing on
the duration of his Majesty's government, that you
frc((uentcd J. M. incessantly, and haunted his house
day by day. What discourses you there used he is
too generous to remember.
"
About three years after the publication of the
second part of the Behears
the sword. In 1675, Dr. Croft, Bishop of Here-
ford, had published a work entitled " The Naked
Truth, or the true state of the Primitive Church,
by a humble Moderator. " It enjoined on all
religious parties the unwelcome duties of forbear-
ance and charity; but as it especially exposed
the danger and folly of enforcing a minute uni-
formity, it could not be suffered to pass unchal-
lenged in that age of high church intolerance. It
was petulantly attacked by Dr. Francis Turner,
Master of St John's College, Cambridge, in a
pamphlet entitled '* Animadversions on the Naked
Truth. " This provoked our satirist, who replied
in a pamphlet entitled, "Mr. Smirke, or the
Divine in Mode. " He here fits his antagonist
with a character out of Etherege's "Man of
Mode " — ^as he had before fitted Parker with one
from Buckingham's " Rehearsal. " The merits
and defects of this pamphlet are of much the
Digitized by VjOOQIC
NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXVll
same order as those of his former work — it is
perliaps less disfigured by coarseness and vehe-
mence. Of Dr. Croft's pamphlet, he beautifully
expresses a feeling, of which we imagine few of
us can have been unconscious when perusing any
work which strongly appeals to our reason and
conscience, and in which, as we proceed, we seem
to recognize what we have often thought, but
never uttered. " It is a book of that kind, that
no Christian can peruse it without wishing him-
self to have been the author, and almost imagin-
ing that he is so ; the conceptions therein being
of so eternal an idea, that every man finds it to
be but a copy of the original in his own mind. "
To this little brochure was attached, "A Short
Historical Essay concerning General Councils,
Creeds, and Impositions in matters of Religion. "
It is characterized by the same strong sense and
untiring vivacity as his other writings, and evinces
a creditable acquaintance with ecclesiastical his-
tory ; but it is neither copious nor profound
enough for the subject.
