t 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