"THE REHEARSAL TRANSPROSED"
It is never easy for ecclesiastical controversy to force its way into
literature. The importance of the theme will be questioned by few. The
ability displayed in its illumination can be denied by none. It is the
temper that usually spoils all. A collection in any way approaching
completeness, of the pamphlets this contention has produced in England,
would contain tens of thousands of volumes; full of curious learning and
anecdotes, of wide reading and conjecture, of shrewdness and wit; yet
these books are certainly the last we would seek to save from fire or
water. Could they be piled into scales of moral measurement a single
copy of the _Imitatio_, of the _Holy Dying_, of the _Saint's Rest_,
would outweigh them all. Man may not be a religious animal, but he
recognises and venerates the spirit of religion whenever he perceives
it, and it is a spirit which is apt to evaporate amidst the strife of
rival wits. Who can doubt the sincerity of Milton, when he exclaimed
with the sad prophet Jeremy, "Woe is me my Mother that thou hast borne
me a man of strife and contention."
Marvell's chief prose work, the two parts of _The Rehearsal
Transprosed_, is a very long pamphlet indeed, composed by way of reply
to certain publications of Samuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford.
Controversially Marvell's book was a great success.[152:1] It amused the
king, delighted the wits, was welcomed, if not read, by the pious folk
whose side it espoused, whilst its literary excellence was sufficient to
win, in after years, the critical approval of Swift, whose style, though
emphatically his own, bears traces of its master having given, I will
not say his days and nights, but certainly some profitable hours, to the
study of Marvell's prose.
Biographers of controversialists seldom do justice to the other side.
Possibly they do not read it, and Parker has been severely handled by my
predecessors. He was not an honour to his profession, being, perhaps, as
good or as bad a representative of the seamy side of State Churchism as
there is to be found. He was the son of a Puritan father, and whilst at
Wadham lived by rule, fasting and praying. He took his degree in the
early part of 1659, and migrating to Trinity came under the influence of
Dr. Bathurst, then Senior Fellow, to whom, so he says in one of his
dedications, "I owe my first rescue from the chains and fetters of an
unhappy education."[152:2] Anything Parker did he did completely, and
we next hear of him in London in 1665, a nobleman's chaplain, setting
the table in a roar by making fun of his former friends, "a mimical way
of drolling upon the puritans." "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 preparing than most of
the auditory." In 1667 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Sheldon, a very
mundane person indeed, made Parker his chaplain, and three years later
Archdeacon of Canterbury. He reached many preferments, so that, says
Marvell, "his head swell'd like any bladder with wind and vapour." He
had an active pen and a considerable range of subject. In 1670 he
produced "A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie wherein the Authority of
the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of
External Religion is Asserted; The Mischiefs and Inconveniences of
Toleration are represented and all Pretenses pleaded in behalf of
_Liberty of Conscience_ are fully answered." Some one instantly took up
the cudgels in a pamphlet entitled _Insolence and Impudence Triumphant_,
and the famous Dr. Owen also protested in _Truth and Innocence
Vindicated_. Parker replied to Owen in _A Defence and Continuation of
Ecclesiastical Politie_, and in the following year, 1672, reprinted a
treatise of Bishop Bramholl's with a preface "shewing what grounds there
are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery."
This was the state of the controversy when Marvell entered upon it with
his _Rehearsal Transprosed_, a fantastic title he borrowed for no very
good reasons from the farce of the hour, and a very good farce too, the
Duke of Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which was performed for the first time
at the Theatre Royal on the 7th of November 1671, and printed early in
1672. Most of us have read Sheridan's _Critic_ before we read
Buckingham's _Rehearsal_, which is not the way to do justice to the
earlier piece. It is a matter of literary tradition that the duke had
much help in the composition of a farce it took ten years to make.
Butler, Sprat, and Clifford, the Master of Charterhouse, are said to be
co-authors. However this may be, the piece was a great success, and both
Marvell and Parker, I have no doubt, greatly enjoyed it, but I cannot
think the former was wise to stuff his plea for Liberty of Conscience so
full as he did with the details of a farce. His doing so should, at all
events, acquit him of the charge of being a sour Puritan. In the
_Rehearsal_ Bayes (Dryden), who is turned by Sheridan in his adaptation
of the piece into Mr. Puff, is made to produce out of his pocket his
book of _Drama Commonplaces_, and the play proceeds (_Johnson_ and
_Smith_ being _Sheridan's_ Dangle and Sneer):
"_Johnson._ _Drama Commonplaces_! pray what's that?
_Bayes._ Why, Sir, some certain helps, that we men of Art have found
it convenient to make use of.
_Johnson._ How, Sir, help for Wit?
_Bayes._ I, Sir, that's my position. And I do here averr, that no man
yet the Sun e'er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a
Stage, except it be with the help of these my rules.
_Johnson._ What are those Rules, I pray?
_Bayes._ Why, Sir, my first Rule is the Rule of Transversion, or
_Regula Duplex_, changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into Verse,
_alternative_ as you please.
_Smith._ How's that, Sir, by a Rule, I pray?
_Bayes._ Why, thus, Sir; nothing more 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), 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, a very good Notion, and hereafter it shall be
so."
Marvell must be taken to have meant by his title that he saw some
resemblance between Parker and Bayes, and, indeed, he says he does, and
gives that as one of his excuses for calling Parker Bayes all through:--
"But before I commit myself to the dangerous depths of his Discourse
which I am now upon the brink of, I would with his leave, make a
motion; that instead of Author I may henceforth indifferently well
call him Mr. Bayes as oft as I shall see occasion. And that first
because he has no name, or at least will not own it, though he
himself writes under the greatest security, and gives us the first
letters of other men's names before he be asked them. Secondly,
because he is, I perceive, a lover of elegancy of style and can
endure no man's tautologies but his own; and therefore I would not
distaste him with too frequent repetition of one word. But chiefly
because Mr. Bayes and he do very much symbolise, in their
understandings, in their expressions, in their humour, in their
contempt and quarrelling of all others, though of their own
profession."
But justice must be done even to Parker before handing him over to the
Tormentor. What were his positions? He was a coarse-fibred, essentially
irreligious fellow, the accredited author of the reply to the question
"What is the best body of Divinity?" "That which would help a man to
keep a Coach and six horses," but he is a lucid and vigorous writer,
knowing very well that he had to steer his ship through a narrow and
dangerous channel, avoiding Hobbism on the one side and tender
consciences on the other. Each generation of State Churchmen has the
same task. The channel remains to-day just as it ever did, with Scylla
and Charybdis presiding over their rocks as of old. Hobbes's _Leviathan_
appeared in 1651, and in 1670 both his philosophy and his statecraft
were fashionable doctrine. All really pious people called Hobbes an
Atheist. Technically he was nothing of the sort, but it matters little
what he was technically, since no plain man who can read can doubt that
Hobbes's enthronement of the State was the dethronement of God:--
"Seeing then that in every Christian commonwealth the civil sovereign
is the supreme factor to whose charge the whole flock of his subjects
is commuted, and consequently that it is by his authority that all
other pastors are made and have power to teach and perform all other
pastoral offices, it followeth also that it is from the civil
sovereign that all other pastors derive their right of teaching,
preaching and other functions pertaining to that office, and that
they are but his ministers in the same way as the magistrates of
towns, judges in Court of Justice and commanders of assizes are all
but ministers of him that is the magistrate of the whole
commonwealth, judge of all causes and commander of the whole militia,
which is always the Civil Sovereign. And the reason hereof is not
because they that teach, but because they that are to learn, are his
subjects."--(_The Leviathan_, Hobbes's _English Works_ (Molesworth's
Edition), vol. iii. p. 539.)
Hobbes shirks nothing, and asks himself the question, What if a king, or
a senate or other sovereign person forbid us to believe in Christ? The
answer given is, "such forbidding is of no effect; because belief and
unbelief never follow men's commands." But suppose "we be commanded by
our lawful prince to say with our tongue we believe not, must we obey
such command?" Here Hobbes a little hesitates to say outright "Yes, you
must"; but he does say "whatsoever a subject is compelled to do in
obedience to his own Sovereign, and doth it not in order to his own
mind, but in order to the laws of his country, that action is not his,
but his Sovereign's--nor is it that he in this case denieth Christ
before men, but his Governor and the law of his country." Hobbes then
puts the case of a Mahomedan subject of a Christian Commonwealth who is
required under pain of death to be present at the Divine Service of the
Christian Church--what is he to do? If, says Hobbes, you say he ought
to die, then you authorise all private men to disobey their princes in
maintenance of their religion, true or false, and if you say the
Mahomedan ought to obey, you admit Hobbes's proposition and ought to
consent to be yourself bound by it. (See Hobbes's _English Works_, iii.
493.)
The Church of England, though anxious both to support the king and
suppress the Dissenters, could not stomach Hobbes; but if it could not,
how was it to deal with Hobbes's question, "if it is _ever_ right to
disobey your lawful prince, who is to determine _when_ it is right?"
Parker seeks to grapple with this difficulty. He disowns Hobbes.
"When men have once swallowed this principle, that Mankind is free
from all obligations antecedent to the laws of the Commonwealth, and
that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and
Evil, they proceed suitably to its consequences to believe that no
Religion can obtain the force of law till it is established as such
by supreme authority, that the Holy Scriptures were not laws to any
man till they were enjoyn'd by the Christian Magistrate, and that if
the Sovereign Power would declare the Alcoran to be Canonical
Scripture, it would be as much the Word of God as the Four Gospels.
(See _Hobbes_, vol. iii. p. 366.) So that all Religions are in
reality nothing but Cheats and impostures to awe the common people to
obedience. And therefore although Princes may wisely make use of the
foibles of Religion to serve their own turns upon the silly
multitude, yet 'tis below their wisdom to be seriously concerned
themselves for such fooleries." (Parker's _Ecc. Politie_, p. 137.)
As against this fashionable Hobbism, Parker pleads Conscience.
"When anything that is apparently and intrinsically evil is the
Matter of a Human Law, whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical
concern, here God is to be obeyed rather than Man."
He forcibly adds:--
"Those who would take off from the Consciences of Men all obligations
antecedent to those of Human Laws, instead of making the power of
Princes Supreme, Absolute and Uncontrollable, they utterly enervate
all their authority, and set their subjects at perfect liberty from
all their commands. For if we once remove all the antecedent
obligations of Conscience and Religion, Men will no further be bound
to submit to their laws than only as themselves shall see convenient,
and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to
rebel as oft as it is their interest." (_Ecc. Politie_, pp. 112-113.)
But though when dealing with Hobbes, Parker thinks fit to assert the
claims of conscience so strongly, when he has to grapple with those who,
like the immortal author of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, "devilishly and
perniciously abstained from coming to Church," and upheld "unlawful
Meetings and Conventicles," his tone alters, and it is hard to
distinguish his position from that of the philosopher of Malmesbury.
Parker's argument briefly stated, and as much as possible in his own
vigorous language, comes to this:
There is and always must be a competition between the prerogative of
the Prince or State and that of Conscience, which on this occasion is
defined as "every private man's own judgment and persuasion of things."
"Do subjects rebel against their Sovereign? 'Tis Conscience that takes
up arms. Do they murder Kings? 'Tis under the conduct of Conscience. Do
they separate from the communion of the Church? 'Tis Conscience that is
the Schismatick. Everything that a man has a mind to is his Conscience."
(_Ecc. Politie_, p. 6.)
How is this competition to be resolved? Parker answers in exact language
which would have met with John Austin's warm approval.
"The Supreme Government of every Commonwealth, wherever it is lodged,
must of necessity be universal, absolute and uncontrollable. For if
it be limited, it may be controlled, but 'tis a thick and palpable
contradiction to call such a power supreme in that whatever controls
it must as to that case be its Superior. And therefore affairs of
Religion being so strongly influential upon affairs of State, they
must be as uncontrollably subject to the Supreme Power as all other
Civil concerns." (_Ecc. Politie_, p. 27.)
If the magistrate may make penal laws against swearing and blasphemy,
why not as to rites and ceremonies of public worship? (39.) Devotion
towards God is a virtue akin to gratitude to man; religion is a branch
of morality. The Puritans' talk about grace is a mere imposture, (76)
which extracts from Parker vehement language. What is there to make such
a fuss about? he cries. Why cannot you come to Church? You are left free
to _think_ what you like. Your secret thoughts are your own, but living
as you do in society, and knowing as you must how, unless the law
interferes, "every opinion must make a sect, and every sect a faction,
and every faction when it is able, a war, and every war is the cause of
God, and the cause of God can never be prosecuted with too much
violence" (16), why cannot you conform to a form of worship which,
though it does not profess to be prescribed in all particulars, contains
nothing actually forbidden in the Scriptures? What authority have
Dissenters for singing psalms in metre? "Where has our Saviour or his
Apostles enjoined a directory for public worship? What Scripture command
is there for the _three_ significant ceremonies of the Solemn League and
Covenant, viz. that the whole congregation should take it (1) uncovered,
(2) standing, (3) with their right hand lift up bare" (184), and so on.
In answer to the objection that the civil magistrate might establish a
worship in its own nature sinful and sensual, Parker replies it is not
in the least likely, and the risk must be run. "Our enquiry is to find
out the best way of settling the world that the state of things admit
of--if indeed mankind were infallible, this controversy were at an end,
but seeing that all men are liable to errors and mistakes, and seeing
that there is an absolute necessity of a supreme power in all public
affairs, our question (I say) is, What is the most prudent and expedient
way of settling them, not that possibly might be, but that really is.
And this (as I have already sufficiently proved) is to devolve their
management on the supreme civil power which, though it may be imperfect
and liable to errors and mistakes, yet 'tis the least so, and is a much
better way to attain public peace and tranquillity than if they were
left to the ignorance and folly of every private man" (212).
I now feel that at least I have done Parker full justice, but as so far
I have hardly given an example of his familiar style, I must find room
for two or three final quotations. The thing Parker hated most in the
world was a _Tender Conscience_. He protests against the weakness which
is content with passing penal laws, but does not see them carried out
for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences. "Most men's
minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond
and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their
passions." (7.) "However, if the obligation of laws must yield to that
of a tender conscience, how impregnably is every man that has a mind to
disobey armed against all the commands of his superiors. No authority
shall be able to govern him farther than he himself pleases, and if he
dislike the law he is sufficiently excused (268). A weak conscience is
the product of a weak understanding, and he is a very subtil man that
can find the difference between a tender head and a tender conscience
(269). It is a glorious thing to suffer for a tender conscience, and
therefore it is easy and natural for some people to affect some little
scruples against the commands of authority, thereby to make themselves
obnoxious to some little penalties, and then what godly men are they
that are so ready to be punished for a good conscience" (278). "The
voice of the publick law cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a
tender conscience; all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the
commands of authority. It dares not whimper when that forbids, and the
nod of a prince awes it into silence and submission. But if they dare to
murmur, and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their
superiors, then there is no remedy but the rod and correction. They must
be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience (305).
The doctor concludes his treatise with the words always dear to men of
fluctuating opinions, 'What I have written, I have written'" (326).
Whilst Parker was writing this book in his snug quarters in the
Archbishop's palace at Lambeth, Bunyan was in prison in Bedford for
refusing to take the communion on his knees in his parish church; and
Dr. Manton, who had been offered the Deanery of Rochester, was in the
Gate House Prison under the Five Mile Act.
The first part of _The Rehearsal Transprosed_, though its sub-title is
"Animadversions upon a late book intituled a Preface shewing what
grounds there are of Fears and Jealousies of Popery," deals after
Marvell's own fashion with all three of Parker's books, the
_Ecclesiastical Politie_, the _Bramhall Preface_, and the _Defence of
the Ecclesiastical Politie_. It is by no means so easy to give a fair
notion of the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ in a short compass, as it was of
Parker's line of argument. The parson wrote more closely than the Member
of Parliament. I cannot give a better description of Marvell's method
than in Parker's own words in his preface to his _Reproof to the
Rehearsal Transprosed_, which appeared in 1673 and gave rise to
Marvell's second part:--
"When," writes Parker, "I first condemned myself to the drudgery of
this Reply, I intended nothing but a serious prosecution of my
Argument, and to let the World see that it is not reading Histories
or Plays or Gazettes, nor going on pilgrimage to Geneva, nor learning
French and Italian, nor passing the Alps, nor being a cunning
Gamester that can qualify a man to discourse of Conscience and
Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping our Argument with a
story that will answer it, nor clapping an apothegm upon an assertion
that will prove it, nor stringing up Proverbs and Similitudes upon
one another that will make up a Coherent Discourse."
Allowing for bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it
was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in
amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read
by those who love reading with a fair measure of interest and enjoyment.
Witty and humorous men are always at a disadvantage except on the stage.
The hum-drum is the style for Englishmen. Bishop Burnet calls Marvell "a
droll," Parker, who was to be a bishop, calls him "a buffoon." Marvell
is occasionally humorous and not infrequently carries a jest beyond the
limits of becoming mirth; but he is more often grave. Yet when he is,
his gravity was treated either as one of his feebler jokes or as an
impertinence. But as it is his wit alone that has kept him alive he need
not be pitied overmuch.
The substance of Marvell's reply to Parker, apart altogether from its
by-play, is to be found in passages like the following:--
"Here it is that after so great an excess of wit, he thinks fit to
take a julep and re-settle his brain and the government. He grows as
serious as 'tis possible for a madman, and pretends to sum-up the
whole state of the controversy with the Nonconformists. And to be
sure he will make the story as plausible for himself as he may; but
therefore it was that I have before so particularly quoted and bound
him up with his own words as fast as such a Proteus could be
pinion'd. For he is as waxen as the first matter, and no form comes
amiss to him. Every change of posture does either alter his opinion
or vary the expression by which we should judge of it; and sitting he
is of one mind, and standing of another. Therefore I take myself the
less concern'd to fight with a windmill like Quixote; or to whip a
gig as boyes do; or with the lacqueys at Charing-Cross or
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to play at the Wheel of Fortune; lest I should
fall into the hands of my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond Godfrey.
The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he
can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as
never was of God's making. He had put all princes upon the rack to
stretch them to his dimension. And as a straight line continued grows
a circle, he had given them so infinite a power, that it was extended
unto impotency. For though he found it not till it was too late in
the cause, yet he felt it all along (which is the understanding of
brutes) in the effect. For hence it is that he so often complains
that princes know not aright that supremacy over consciences, to
which they were so lately, since their deserting the Church of Rome,
restored; that in most Nations government was not rightly understood,
and many expressions of that nature: whereas indeed the matter is,
that princes have always found that uncontroulable government over
_conscience_ to be both unsafe and impracticable. He had run himself
here to a stand, and perceived that there was a God, there was
Scripture; the magistrate himself had a conscience, and must 'take
care that he did not enjoyn things apparently evil.' But after all,
he finds himself again at the same stand here, and is run up to the
wall by an angel. God, and Scripture, and conscience will not let him
go further; but he owns, that if the magistrate enjoyns things
apparently evil, the subject may have liberty to remonstrate. What
shall he do, then? for it is too glorious an enterprize to be
abandoned at the first rebuffe. Why, he gives us a new translation of
the Bible, and a new commentary! He saith, that tenderness of
conscience might be allowed in a Church to be constituted, not in a
Church constituted already. That tenderness of conscience and scandal
are ignorance, pride, and obstinacy. He saith, the Nonconformists
should communicate with him till they have clear evidence that it is
evil. This is a civil way indeed of gaining the question, to perswade
men that are unsatisfied, to be satisfied till they be dissatisfied.
He threatens, he rails, he jeers them, if it were possible, out of
all their consciences and honesty; and finding that will not do, he
calls out the magistrate, tells him these men are not fit to live;
there can be no security of government while they are in being. Bring
out the pillories, whipping-posts, gallies (=galleys), rods, and
axes (which are _ratio ultima cleri_, a clergyman's last argument, ay
and his first too), and pull in pieces all the Trading Corporations,
those nests of Faction and Sedition. This is a faithful account of
the sum and intention of all his undertaking, for which, I confess,
he was as pick'd a man as could have been employed or found out in a
whole kingdome; but it is so much too hard a task for any man to
atchieve, that no goose but would grow giddy with it."[165:1]
In reply to what Parker had written about the unreasonable fuss made by
the Dissenters over the "two or three symbolical ceremonies" called
sacraments, Marvell says:--
"They (the Nonconformists) complain that these things should be
imposed on them with so high a penalty as want nothing of a
sacramental nature but divine institution. And because a human
institution is herein made of equal force to a divine institution
therefore it is that they are aggrieved.... For without the sign of
the Cross our Church will not receive any one in Baptism; as also
without kneeling no man is suffered to come to the Communion.... But
here, I say, then is their (the Nonconformists') main exception that
things indifferent and that have no proper signature or significancy
to that purpose should by command be made conditions of
Church-communion. I have many times wished for peaceableness' sake
that they had a greater latitude, but if, unless they should stretch
their consciences till they tear again, they cannot conform, what
remedy? For I must confess that Christians have a better right and
title to the Church and to the ordinances of God there, than the
Author hath to his surplice.... Bishop Bramhall saith, 'I do profess
to all the world that the transforming of indifferent opinions into
necessary articles of faith hath been that _insana laurus_ or cursed
bay tree, the cause of all our brawling and contention.' That which
he saw in matter of doctrine, he would not discern in discipline....
It is true and very piously done that our Church doth declare that
the kneeling at the Lord's Supper is not enjoined for adoration of
those elements and concerning the other ceremonies as before. But
the Romanists (from whom we have them and who said of old we would
come to feed on their meat as well as eat of their porridge) do offer
us here many a fair declaration and distinction in very weighty
matters to which nevertheless the conscience of our Church hath not
complyed. But in this particular matter of kneeling which came in
first with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Romish Church do
reproach us with flat idolatry, in that we, not believing the real
presence in the bread and wine, yet do pay to something or other the
same adoration. Suppose the ancient pagans had declared to the
primitive Christians that the offerings of some grains of incense was
only to perfume the room--do you think the Christians would have
palliated so far and colluded with their consciences? Therefore
although the Church do consider herself so much as not to alter her
mode unto the fashion of others, yet I cannot see why she ought to
exclude those from communion whose weaker consciences cannot, for
fear of scandal, step further."[166:1]
With Parker's thunders and threats of the authority of princes and
states, Marvell deals more in the mood of a statesman than of a
philosopher, more as a man of affairs than as a jurist. He deplores the
ferocity of Parker's tone and that of a certain number of the clergy.
"Why is it," he asks, "that this kind of clergy should always be and
have been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary counsels?
The former Civil War cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty's happy
return good-natured, but they are still for running things up unto
the same extremes. The softness of the Universities where they have
been bred, the gentleness of Christianity, in which they have been
nurtured, hath but exasperated their nature, and they seem to have
contracted no idea of wisdom but what they learnt at school--the
pedantry of Whipping. For whether it be or no that the clergy are not
so well fitted by education as others for political affairs I know
not, though I should rather think they have advantage above others,
and even if they would but keep to their Bibles, might make the best
Ministers of State in the world; yet it is generally observed that
things miscarry under their government. If there be any council more
precipitate, more violent, more extreme than other, it is theirs.
Truly, I think the reason that God does not bless them in affairs of
State is because he never intended them for that employment."[167:1]
Of Archbishop Laud and Charles the First, Marvell says:--
"I am confident the Bishop studied to do both God and his Majesty
good service; but alas, how utterly was he mistaken. Though so
learned, so pious, so wise a man, he seem'd to know nothing beyond
Ceremonies, Armenianism, and Mainwaring. With that he begun, with
that ended, and thereby deform'd the whole reign of the best prince
that ever wielded the English sceptre. For his late Majesty, being a
prince truly pious and religious, was therefore the more inclined to
esteem and favour the clergy. And thence, though himself of a most
exquisite understanding, yet he could not trust it better than in
their treatment. Whereas every man is best at his own post, and so
the preacher in the pulpit."[167:2]
Kings, Marvell points out to Parker, must take wider views than parsons.
"'Tis not with them as with you. You have but one cure of souls, or
perhaps two as being a nobleman's chaplain, to look after, and if you
made conscience of discharging them as you ought, you would find you
had work sufficient without writing your 'Ecclesiastical Policies.'
But they are the incumbents of whole kingdoms, and the rectorship of
the common people, the nobility, and even of the clergy. The care I
say of all this rests on them, so that they are fain to condescend to
many things for peace sake and the quiet of mankind that your proud
heart would break before it would bend to. They do not think fit to
require any thing that is impossible, unnecessary or wanton of their
people, but are fain to consider the very temper of the climate in
which they live, the constitution and laws under which they have been
formerly bred, and upon all occasions to give them good words and
humour them like children. They reflect upon the histories of former
times and the present transactions to regulate themselves by in every
circumstance.... They (Kings) do not think fit to command things
unnecessary."[168:1]
These extracts, however fatal to Marvell's traditional reputation in the
eighteenth century as a Puritan and a Republican, call for no apology.
An example of Marvell's Interludes ought to be given. There are many to
choose from.
"There was a worthy divine, not many years dead, who in his younger
time, being of a facetious and unlucky humour, was commonly known by
the name of Tom Triplet; he was brought up at Paul's school under a
severe master, Dr. Gill, and from thence he went to the University.
There he took liberty (as 'tis usual with those that are emancipated
from School) to tel tales and make the discipline ridiculous under
which he was bred. But not suspecting the doctor's intelligence,
coming once to town he went in full school to give him a visite and
expected no less than to get a play day for his former acquaintances.
But instead of that he found himself hors'd up in a trice, though he
appeal'd in vain to the priviledges of the University, pleaded
_adultus_ and invoked the mercy of the spectators. Nor was he let
down till the master had planted a grove of birch in his back-side
for the terrour and publick example of all waggs that divulge the
secrets of Priscian and make merry with their teachers. This stuck so
with Triplet that all his life-time he never forgave the doctor, but
sent him every New Year's tide an anniversary ballad to a new tune,
and so in his turn avenged himself of his jerking pedagogue."[168:2]
Marvell's game of picquet with a parson plays such a part in Parker's
_Reproof_ to the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ that it deserves to be
mentioned:--
"'Tis not very many years ago that I used to play at picket; there
was a gentleman of your robe, a dignitory of Lincoln, very well
known and remembered in the ordinaries, but being not long since
dead, I will save his name. Now I used to play pieces, and this
gentleman would always go half-a-crown with me; and so all the while
he sate on my hand he very honestly '_gave the sign_' so that I was
always sure to lose. I afterwards discovered it, but of all the money
that ever I was cheated of in my life, none ever vexed me so as what
I lost by his occasion."[169:1]
There is no need to pursue the controversy further. It is still
unsettled.
Parker's _Reproof_, published in 1673, is less argumentative and
naturally enough more personal than the _Ecclesiastical Politie_. Any
use I now make of it will be purely biographical. Let us see Andrew
Marvell depicted by an angry parson--not in passages of mere abuse, as
_e.g._ "Thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou coward in
heart, word and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile"; for epithets such as
these are of no use to a biographer--but in places where Marvell is at
least made to sit for the portrait, however ill-natured.
"And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with
the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents
and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and
from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, but the young man,
being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain
courage and experience, and beyond sea saw the Bears of Berne and the
large race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights beside,
and so returned home as accomplished as he went out, tries his
fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a gentleman
of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at
Picquet." ... "And now to conclude; is it not a sad thing that a
well-bred and fashionable gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries,
that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of
a Watch, that has travelled abroad and seen as many men and
countries as the famous Vertuosi, Sorbier and Coriat, that has heard
the City Lions roar, that has past the Alps and seen all the
Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy, that has sat in the
Porphyric Chair at Rome, that can describe the methods of the
Elections of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Cardinals, that
has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues
of State at home, that has read Plays and Histories and Gazettes;
that I say a Gentleman thus accomplished and embellished within and
without and all over, should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at
last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable age with such
childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonery."--(_Reproof_,
pp. 270, 274-5.)[170:1]
Marvell was very little over fifty years of his age at this time, nor is
Parker's portrait to be regarded as truthful in any other
particular--yet something of a man's character may be discovered by
noticing the way he is abused by those who want to abuse him.
Marvell, though no orator, or even debater, was the stuff of which
controversialists are made. In a letter, printed in the Duke of
Portland's papers, and dated May 3, 1673, he writes:--
"Dr. Parker will be out the next week. I have seen it--already three
hundred and thirty pages and it will be much more. (It was five
hundred twenty-eight pages.) I perceive by what I have read that it
is the rudest book, one or other, that ever was published, I may say
since the first invention of printing. Although it handles me so
roughly, yet I am not at all amated by it. But I must desire the
advice of some few friends to tell me whether it will be proper for
me and in what way to answer it. However I will for mine own private
satisfaction forthwith draw up an answer that shall have as much of
spirit and solidity in it as my ability will afford and the age we
live in will endure. I am, if I may say it with reverence, drawn in I
hope by a good Providence to intermeddle on a noble and high
argument. But I desire that all the discourse of my friends may run
as if no answer ought to be expected to so scurrilous a
book."--(_Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland Papers_, iii. 337.)
The title-page of the Second Part of the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ is a
curiosity:--
THE
REHEARSALL
TRANSPROS'D:
* * * * *
THE SECOND PART.
* * * * *
Occasioned by Two Letters: The first Printed
by a nameless Author, Intituled, A
Reproof, etc.
The Second Letter left for me at a Friends
House, Dated Nov. 3, 1673. Subscribed
J.G. and concluding with these words;
If thou darest to Print or Publish any
Lie or Libel against Doctor Parker, By
the Eternal God I will cut thy Throat.
* * * * *
Answered by ANDREW MARVEL.
* * * * *
LONDON,
Printed for Nathaniel Ponder at the Peacock
in Chancery Lane near Fleet-Street, 1673.
The _Second Part_ is an exceedingly witty though too lengthy a
performance. Marvell's "companion picture" of Parker is full of matter,
and of the very spirit of the times. Some of it must be given:--
"But though he came of a good mother, he had a very ill sire. He was
a man bred toward the Law, and betook himself, as his best practice,
to be a sub-committee-man, or, as the stile ran, one of the Assistant
Committee in Northamptonshire. In the rapine of that employment, and
what he got by picking the teeth of his masters, he sustain'd himself
till he had raked together some little estate. And then, being a man
for the purpose, and that had begun his fortune out of the
sequestration of the estates of the King's Party, he, to perfect it
the more, proceeded to take away their lives; not in the hot and
military way (which diminishes always the offence), but in the cooler
blood and sedentary execution of an High Court of Justice.
Accordingly he was preferr'd to be one of that number that gave
sentence against the three Lords, Capel, Holland, and Hamilton, who
were beheaded. By this learning in the Law he became worthy of the
degree of a serjeant, and sometimes to go the Circuit, till for
misdemeanor he was petition'd against. But for a taste of his
abilities, and the more to reingratiate himself, he printed, in the
year 1650, a very remarkable Book, called 'The Government of the
People of England, precedent and present the same. _Ad subscribentes
confirmandum, Dubitantes informandum, Opponentes convincendum_; and
underneath _Multa videntur quae non sunt, multa sunt quae non
videntur_. Under that ingraven two hands joyn'd, with the motto, _Ut
uniamur_; and beneath a sheaf of arrows, with this device, _Vis unita
fortior_; and to conclude, _Concordia parvae res crescunt discordia
dilabuntur_.' A most hieroglyphical title, and sufficient to have
supplied the mantlings and atchievements of the family! By these
parents he was sent to Oxford, with intention to breed him up to the
ministry. There in a short time he enter'd himself into the company
of some young students who were used to fast and pray weekly
together; but for their refection fed sometimes on broth, from whence
they were commonly called Grewellers; only it was observed that he
was wont still to put more graves than all the rest in his porridge.
And after that he pick'd acquaintance not only with the brotherhood
at Wadham Colledge, but with the sisterhood too, at another old
Elsibeth's, one Elizabeth Hampton's, a plain devout woman, where he
train'd himself up in hearing their sermons and prayers, receiving
also the Sacrament in the house, till he had gain'd such proficience,
that he too began to exercise in that Meeting, and was esteem'd one
of the preciousest young men in the University. But when thus, after
several years' approbation, he was even ready to have taken the
charge, not of an 'admiring drove or heard,' as he now calls them,
but of a flock upon him, by great misfortune the King came in by the
miraculous providence of God, influencing the distractions of some,
the good affections of others, and the weariness of all towards that
happy Restauration, after so many sufferings, to his regal crown and
dignity. Nevertheless he broke not off yet from his former habitudes;
and though it were now too late to obviate this inconvenience, yet he
persisted as far as in him was--that is, by praying, caballing, and
discoursing--to obstruct the restoring of the episcopal government,
revenues, and authority. Insomuch that, finding himself
discountenanced on those accounts by the then Warden of Wadham, he
shifted colledges to Trinity, and, when there, went away without his
degree, scrupling, forsooth, the Subscription then required. From
thence he came to London, where he spent a considerable time in
creeping into all corners and companies, horoscoping up and down
concerning the duration of the Government; not considering anything
as best, but as most lasting and most profitable. And after having
many times cast a figure, he at last satisfyed himself that the
Episcopal Government would endure as long as this King lived; and
from thence forward cast about how to be admitted into the Church of
England, and find the highway to her preferments. In order to this he
daily enlarged, not only his conversation, but his conscience, and
was made free of some of the town-vices; imagining, like Muleasses
King of Tunis (for I take witness that on all occasions I treat him
rather above his quality than otherwise), that by hiding himself
among the onions, he should escape being traced by his perfumes.
Ignorant and mistaken man, that thought it necessary to part with any
virtue to get a living; or that the Church of England did not require
and incourage more sobriety than he could ever be guilty of; whereas
it hath alwayes been fruitful of men who, together with obedience to
that discipline, have lived to the envy of the Nonconformists in
their conversation, and without such could never either have been
preserved so long, or after so long a dissipation have ever
recover'd. But neither was this yet, in his opinion, sufficient; and
therefore he resolv'd to try a shorter path, which some few men had
trod not unsuccessfully; that is, to print a Book; if that would not
do, a second; if not that, a third of an higher extraction, and so
forward, to give experiment against their former party of a keen
stile and a ductile judgment. His first proof-piece was in the year
1665, the _Tentamina Physico-Theologica_; a tedious transcript of his
common-place book, wherein there is very little of his own, but the
arrogance and the unparalleled censoriousness that he exercises over
all other Writers. When he had cook'd up these musty collections, he
makes his first invitation to his 'old acquaintance' my lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, who had never seen before nor heard of him.
But I must confess he furbishes-up his Grace in so glorious an
Epistle, that had not my Lord been long since proof against the most
spiritual flattery, the Dedication only, without ever reading the
Book, might have serv'd to have fix'd him from that instant as his
favourite. Yet all this I perceive did not his work, but his Grace
was so unmindful, or rather so prudent, that the gentleman thought it
necessary to spur-up again the next year with another new Book, to
show more plainly what he would be at. This he dedicates to Doctor
Bathurst; and to evidence from the very Epistle that he was ready to
renounce that very education, the civility of which he is so tender
of as to blame me for disordering it, he picks occasion to tell him:
'to your prevailing advice, Sir, do I owe my first rescue from the
chains and fetters of an unhappy education.' But in the Book, which
he calls 'A free and impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophy'
(censure 'tis sure to be, whatsoever he writes), he speaks out, and
demonstrates himself ready and equipp'd to surrender not only the
Cause, but betray his Party without making any conditions for them,
and to appear forthwith himself in the head of the contrary interest.
Which, supposing the dispute to be just, yet in him was so mercenary,
that none would have descended to act his part but a divine of
fortune. And even lawyers take themselves excused from being of
counsel for the King himself, in a cause where they have been
entertain'd and instructed by their client. But so flippant he was
and forward in this book, that in despight of all chronology, he
could introduce Plato to inveigh against Calvin, and from the
Platoniques he could miraculously hook-in a Discourse against the
Nonconformists. (_Cens. Plat. Phil._, pp. 26, 27, 28, etc.) After
this feat of activity he was ready to leap over the moon; no scruple
of conscience could stand in his way, and no preferment seemed too
high for him; for about this time, I find that having taken a turn at
Cambridge to qualifie himself, he was received within doors to be my
Lord Archbishop's other chaplain, and into some degree of favour;
which, considering the difference of their humours and ages, was
somewhat surprizing. But whether indeed, in times of heat and
faction, the most temperate spirits may sometimes chance to take
delight in one that is spightful, and make some use of him; or
whether it be that even the most grave and serious persons do for
relaxation divert themselves willingly by whiles with a creature that
is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,--so it was. And thenceforward the
nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to
steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus
dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be
conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he
concern'd himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now
that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be the first
should leave it. His Majesty about that time labouring to effect his
constant promises of Indulgence to his people, the Author therefore
walking with his own shadow in the evening, took a great fright lest
all were agoe. And in this conceit being resolv'd to make good his
figure, and that one government should not last any longer than the
other, he set himself to write those dangerous Books which I have now
to do with; wherein he first makes all that he will to be Law, and
then whatsoever is Law to be Divinity."[176:1]
The Second Part is not all raillery. There is much wisdom in it and a
trace of Machiavelli:--
"But because you are subject to misconstrue even true English, I will
explain my self as distinctly as I can, and as close as possible,
what is mine own opinion in this matter of the magistrate and
government; that, seeing I have blamed you where I thought you
blame-worthy, you may have as fair hold of me too, if you can find
where to fix your accusation.
"The power of the magistrate does most certainly issue from the
divine authority. The obedience due to that power is by divine
command; and subjects are bound, both as men and as Christians, to
obey the magistrate actively in all things where their duty to God
intercedes not, and however passively, that is, either by leaving
their countrey, or if they cannot do that (the magistrate, or the
reason of their own occasions hindring them), then by suffering
patiently at home, without giving the least publick disturbance. But
the dispute concerning the magistrate's power ought to be
superfluous; for that it is certainly founded upon his commission
from God, and for the most part sufficiently fortified with all
humane advantages. There are few soveraign princes so abridged, but
that, if they be not contented, they may envy their own fortune. But
the modester question (if men will needs be medling with matters
above them) would be, how far it is advisable for a prince to exert
and push the rigour of that power which no man can deny him; for
princes, as they derive the right of succession from their ancestors,
so they inherit from that ancient and illustrious extraction a
generosity that runs in the blood above the allay of the rest of
mankind. And being moreover at so much ease of honour and fortune,
that they are free from the gripes of avarice and twinges of
ambition, they are the more disposed to an universal benignity
toward their subjects. What prince that sees so many millions of men,
either labouring industriously toward his revenue, or adventuring
their lives in his service, and all of them performing his commands
with a religious obedience, but conceives at the same time a
relenting tenderness over them, whereof others out of the narrowness
of their minds cannot be capable? But whoever shall cast his eye
thorow the history of all ages, will find that nothing has alwayes
succeeded better with princes then the clemency of government; and
that those, on the contrary, who have taken the sanguinary course,
have been unfortunate to themselves and the people, the consequences
not being separable. For whether that royal and magnanimous
gentleness spring from a propensity of their nature, or be acquired
and confirmed by good and prudent consideration, it draws along with
it all the effects of Policy. The wealth of a shepherd depends upon
the multitude of his flock, the goodness of their pasture, and the
quietness of their feeding; and princes, whose dominion over mankind
resembles in some measure that of men over other creatures, cannot
expect any considerable increase to themselves, if by continual
terrour they amaze, shatter, and hare their people, driving them into
woods, and running them upon precipices. If men do but compute how
charming an efficacy one word, and more, one good action has from a
superior upon those under him, it can scarce be reckon'd how powerful
a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of
humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of
his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be
extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up
in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass
within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be
done; but it is enough if a great and durable design be accomplish'd
in the third life; and supposing an hereditary succession of any
three taking up still where the other left, and dealing still in that
fair and tender way of management, it is impossible but that, even
without reach or intention upon the prince's part, all should fall
into his hand, and in so short a time the very memory or thoughts of
any such thing as publick liberty would, as it were by consent,
expire and be for ever extinguish'd. So that whatever the power of
the magistrate be in the institution, it is much safer for them not
to do that with the left hand which they may do with the right, nor
by an extraordinary, what they may effect by the ordinary, way of
government. A prince that goes to the top of his power is like him
that shall go to the bottom of his treasure."[178:1]
And as for the "common people" he has this to say:--
"Yet neither do they want the use of reason, and perhaps their
aggregated judgment discerns most truly the errours of government,
forasmuch as they are the first, to be sure, that smart under them.
In this only they come to be short-sighted, that though they know the
diseases, they understand not the remedies; and though good patients,
they are ill physicians. The magistrate only is authorized,
qualified, and capable to make a just and effectual Reformation, and
especially among the Ecclesiasticks. For in all experience, as far as
I can remember, they have never been forward to save the prince that
labour. If they had, there would have been no Wickliffe, no Husse, no
Luther in history. Or at least, upon so notable an emergency as the
last, the Church of Rome would then in the Council of Trent have
thought of rectifying itself in good earnest, that it might have
recover'd its ancient character; whereas it left the same divisions
much wider, and the Christian people of the world to suffer,
Protestants under Popish governors, Popish under Protestants, rather
than let go any point of interested ambition."[178:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[152:1] "But the most virulent of all that writ against the sect was
Parker, afterwards made Bishop of Oxford by King James: who was full of
satirical vivacity and was considerably learned, but was a man of no
judgment and of as little virtue, and as to religion rather impious:
after he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent
books writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the
age, who writ 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."--Burnet's _History of his Own Time_.
[152:2] See the dedication to _A Free and Impartial Censure of the
Plutonick Philosophy_, by Sam Parker, A.M., Oxford 1666. Parker was a
man of some taste, and I have in my small collection a beautifully bound
copy of this treatise presented by the author to Seth Ward, then Bishop
of Exeter, and afterwards of Salisbury.
[165:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 145-8.
[166:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 155-9.
[167:1] Grosart, vol. iii. pp. 170, 210-1.
[167:2] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 211.
[168:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 171.
[168:2] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 63.
[169:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 198.
[170:1] For a still more unfriendly sketch of Andrew Marvell by the same
spiteful hand, see Parker's _History of his Own Time_, a posthumous
work, first published in Latin in 1726, and in an English Translation by
_Thomas Newlin_ in 1727. This book contains an interesting enumeration
of the numerous conspiracies against the life and throne of Charles the
Second during the earlier part of his reign, a panegyric upon Archbishop
Sheldon and plentiful abuse of Andrew Marvell. Parker died in unhappy
circumstances (see Macaulay's _History_, vol. ii. p. 205), but he left
behind him a pious nonjuring son, and his grandson founded the famous
publishing firm at Oxford.
[176:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 284.
[178:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 370.
[178:2] _Ibid._, p. 382.