yed an idea of "a neat,
starched, formal, and forward divine." This application of a
fictitious character to a real one, this christening a man with
ridicule, though of no difficult invention, is not a little hazardous
to inferior writers; for it requires not less wit than Marvell's to
bring out of the real character the ludicrous features which mark the
factitious prototype.

Parker himself must have his portrait, and if the likeness be justly
hit off, some may be reminded of a resemblance. Mason applies the
epithet of "Mitred Dullness" to him: but although he was at length
reduced to railing and to menaces, and finally mortified into silence,
this epithet does not suit so hardy and so active an adventurer.

The secret history of Parker may be collected in Marvell,[312] and his
more public one in our honest chronicler, Anthony Wood. Parker was
originally educated in strict sectarian principles; a starch Puritan,
"fasting and praying with the Presbyterian students weekly, and who,
for their refection feeding only on thin broth made of oatmeal and
water, were commonly called _Gruellers_." Among these, says Marvell,
"it was observed that he was wont to put more graves than all the rest
into his porridge, and was deemed one of the _preciousest_[313] young
men in the University." It seems that these mortified saints, both the
brotherhood and the sisterhood, held their chief meetings at the house
of "Bess Hampton, an old and crooked maid that drove the trade of
laundry, who, being from her youth very much given to the godly party,
as they call themselves, had frequent meetings, especially for those
that were her customers." Such is the dry humour of honest Anthony,
who paints like the Ostade of literary history.

But the age of sectarism and thin gruel was losing all its coldness in
the sunshine of the Restoration; and this "preciousest young man,"
from praying and caballing against episcopacy, suddenly acquainted
the world, in one of his dedications, that Dr. Ralph Bathurst had
"rescued him from the chains and fetters of an unhappy education,"
and, without any intermediate apology, from a sullen sectarian turned
a flaming highflyer for the "supreme dominion" of the Church.[314]

It is the after-conduct of Parker that throws light on this rapid
change. On speculative points any man may be suddenly converted; for
these may depend on facts or arguments which might never have occurred
to him before. But when we watch the we