r a time, he met with
better success. Ellwood, at this time, rendered good service to his
friends, by exposing the true character of these wretches, and bringing
them to justice for theft, perjury, and other misdemeanors.

While this storm of persecution lasted, (a period of two or three years,)
the different dissenting sects felt, in some measure, a common sympathy,
and, while guarding themselves against their common foe, had little
leisure for controversy with each other; but, as was natural, the
abatement of their mutual suffering and danger was the signal for
renewing their suspended quarrels. The Baptists fell upon the Quakers,
with pamphlet and sermon; the latter replied in the same way. One of the
most conspicuous of the Baptist disputants was the famous Jeremy Ives,
with whom our friend Ellwood seems to have had a good deal of trouble.
"His name," says Ellwood, "was up for a topping Disputant. He was well,
read in the fallacies of logic, and was ready in framing syllogisms. His
chief art lay in tickling the humor of rude, unlearned, and injudicious
hearers."

The following piece of Ellwood's, entitled "An Epitaph for Jeremy Ives,"
will serve to show that wit and drollery were sometimes found even among
the proverbially sober Quakers of the seventeenth century:--

"Beneath this stone, depressed, doth lie
The Mirror of Hypocrisy--
Ives, whose mercenary tongue
Like a Weathercock was hung,
And did this or that way play,
As Advantage led the way.
If well hired, he would dispute,
Otherwise he would be mute.
But he'd bawl for half a day,
If he knew and liked his pay.

"For his person, let it pass;
Only note his face was brass.
His heart was like a pumice-stone,
And for Conscience he had none.
Of Earth and Air he was composed,
With Water round about enclosed.
Earth in him had greatest share,
Questionless, his life lay there;
Thence his cankered Envy sprung,
Poisoning both his heart and tongue.

"Air made him frothy, light, and vain,
And puffed him with a proud disdain.
Into the Water oft he went,
And through the Water many sent
That was,