e; but short as it was, it was
more in character, for it was only a threat of assassination! It
concluded with these words: "If thou darest to print any lie or libel
against Dr. Parker, by the Eternal God I will cut thy throat." Marvell
replied to "the Reproof," which he calls a printed letter, by the
second part of "the Rehearsal Transprosed;" and to the unprinted
letter, by publishing it on his own title-page.

Of two volumes of wit and broad humour, and of the most galling
invective, one part flows so much into another, that the volatile
spirit would be injured by an analytical process. But Marvell is now
only read by the curious lovers of our literature, who find the
strong, luxuriant, though not the delicate, wit of the wittiest age,
never obsolete: the reader shall not, however, part from Marvell
without some slight transplantations from a soil whose rich vegetation
breaks out in every part.

Of the pleasantry and sarcasm, these may be considered as specimens.
Parker was both author and licenser of his own work on "Ecclesiastical
Polity;"[318] and it appears he got the licence for printing Marvell's
first _Rehearsal_ recalled. The Church appeared in danger when the
doctor discovered he was so furiously attacked. Marvell sarcastically
rallies him on his dual capacity:--

"He is such an _At-all_, of so many capacities, that he would
excommunicate any man who should have presumed to intermeddle with any
one of his provinces. Has he been an author? he is too the licenser.
Has he been a father? he will stand too for godfather. Had he acted
_Pyramus_, he would have been _Moonshine_ too, and the _Hole in the
Wall_. That first author of 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' (such as his)
Nero, was of the same temper. He could not be contented with the Roman
empire, unless he were too his own precentor; and lamented only the
detriment that mankind must sustain at his death, in losing so
considerable a fiddler."

The satirist describes Parker's arrogance for those whom Parker calls
the vulgar, and whom he defies as "a rout of wolves and tigers, apes
and buffoons;" yet his personal fears are oddly contrasted with his
self-importance: "If he chance but to sneeze, he prays that the
_foundations of the earth_ be not shaken.--Ever since he crept up to
be but the _weathercock of a steeple_, he trembles and cracks at every
puff of wind that blows about him, as if the _Church of England_ were
falling." Parker boasted, in certain philosophi