stood: 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 not