an to discourse of Conscience and
Ecclesiastical Policy; in that it is not capping our Argument with a
story that will answer it, nor clapping an apothegm upon an assertion
that will prove it, nor stringing up Proverbs and Similitudes upon
one another that will make up a Coherent Discourse."

Allowing for bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it
was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in
amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read
by those who love reading with a fair measure of interest and enjoyment.

Witty and humorous men are always at a disadvantage except on the stage.
The hum-drum is the style for Englishmen. Bishop Burnet calls Marvell "a
droll," Parker, who was to be a bishop, calls him "a buffoon." Marvell
is occasionally humorous and not infrequently carries a jest beyond the
limits of becoming mirth; but he is more often grave. Yet when he is,
his gravity was treated either as one of his feebler jokes or as an
impertinence. But as it is his wit alone that has kept him alive he need
not be pitied overmuch.

The substance of Marvell's reply to Parker, apart altogether from its
by-play, is to be found in passages like the following:--

"Here it is that after so great an excess of wit, he thinks fit to
take a julep and re-settle his brain and the government. He grows as
serious as 'tis possible for a madman, and pretends to sum-up the
whole state of the controversy with the Nonconformists. And to be
sure he will make the story as plausible for himself as he may; but
therefore it was that I have before so particularly quoted and bound
him up with his own words as fast as such a Proteus could be
pinion'd. For he is as waxen as the first matter, and no form comes
amiss to him. Every change of posture does either alter his opinion
or vary the expression by which we should judge of it; and sitting he
is of one mind, and standing of another. Therefore I take myself the
less concern'd to fight with a windmill like Quixote; or to whip a
gig as boyes do; or with the lacqueys at Charing-Cross or
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to play at the Wheel of Fortune; lest I should
fall into the hands of my Lord Chief-Justice, or Sir Edmond Godfrey.
The truth is, in short, and let Bayes make more or less of it if he
can, Bayes had at first built-up such a stupendous magistrate as
never was of God's