[307] Randolph's _Muses' Looking-glass_. Act 1, Scene 4.
[308] Swift certainly admired, if he did not imitate Marvell: for in
his "Tale of a Tub" he says, "We still read Marvell's answer
to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk
long ago."
[309] This is a curious remark of Wood's: How came raillery and satire
to be considered as "a newly-refined art?" Has it not, at all
periods, been prevalent among every literary people? The
remark is, however, more founded on truth than it appears, and
arose from Wood's own feelings. Wit and Raillery had been so
strange to us during the gloomy period of the fanatic
Commonwealth, that honest Anthony, whose prejudices did not
run in favour of Marvell, not only considers him as the
"restorer of this newly-refined art," but as one "hugely
versed in it," and acknowledges all its efficacy in the
complete discomfiture of his haughty rival. Besides this, _a
small book_ of controversy, such as Marvell's usually are, was
another novelty--the "aureoli libelli," as one fondly calls
his precious books, were in the wretched taste of the times,
rhapsodies in folio. The reader has doubtless heard of
Caryll's endless "Commentary on Job," consisting of 2400 folio
pages! in small type. Of that monument of human perseverance,
which commenting on Job's patience, inspired what few works do
to whoever read them, the exercise of the virtue it
inculcated, the publisher, in his advertisement in Clavel's
Catalogue of Books, 1681, announces the two folios in 600
sheets each! these were a republication of the first edition,
in twelve volumes quarto! he apologises "that it hath been _so
long a doing_, to the great vexation and loss of the
proposer." He adds, "indeed, _some few lines_, no more than
what may be contained _in a quarto page_, are expunged, _they
not relating to the Exposition_, which nevertheless some, by
malicious prejudice, have so unjustly aggravated, as if the
whole work had been disordered." He apologises for curtailing
_a few lines_ from 2400 folio pages! and he considered that
these few lines were the only ones that did not relate to the
Exposition! At such a time, the little books of Marvell must
have been considered as relishing morsels after such
indigestible surfeits.
[310] The severity of his satire on Charles's court may be well
understood by the following lines:--
"A colony of French possess the court,
Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport;
Such slimy monsters ne'er approached a throne
Since Pharaoh's days, nor so defil'd a crown;
In sacred ear tyrannick arts they croak,
Pervert his mind, and good intentions choak."
"The Historical Poem," given in the poems on State affairs, is
so personal in its attacks on the vices of Charles, that it is
marvellous how its author escaped punishment. "Hodge's Vision
from the Monument" is equally strong, while the "Dialogue
between two Horses" (that of the statue of Charles I. at
Charing-cross, and Charles II., then in the city), has these
two strong lines of regret:--
"----to see _Deo Gratias_ writ on the throne,
And the king's wicked life say God there is none."