But not suspecting the doctor's intelligence,
coming once to town he went in full school to give him a visite and
expected no less than to get a play day for his former acquaintances.
But instead of that he found himself hors'd up in a trice, though he
appeal'd in vain to the priviledges of the University, pleaded
_adultus_ and invoked the mercy of the spectators. Nor was he let
down till the master had planted a grove of birch in his back-side
for the terrour and publick example of all waggs that divulge the
secrets of Priscian and make merry with their teachers. This stuck so
with Triplet that all his life-time he never forgave the doctor, but
sent him every New Year's tide an anniversary ballad to a new tune,
and so in his turn avenged himself of his jerking pedagogue."[168:2]

Marvell's game of picquet with a parson plays such a part in Parker's
_Reproof_ to the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ that it deserves to be
mentioned:--

"'Tis not very many years ago that I used to play at picket; there
was a gentleman of your robe, a dignitory of Lincoln, very well
known and remembered in the ordinaries, but being not long since
dead, I will save his name. Now I used to play pieces, and this
gentleman would always go half-a-crown with me; and so all the while
he sate on my hand he very honestly '_gave the sign_' so that I was
always sure to lose. I afterwards discovered it, but of all the money
that ever I was cheated of in my life, none ever vexed me so as what
I lost by his occasion."[169:1]

There is no need to pursue the controversy further. It is still
unsettled.

Parker's _Reproof_, published in 1673, is less argumentative and
naturally enough more personal than the _Ecclesiastical Politie_. Any
use I now make of it will be purely biographical. Let us see Andrew
Marvell depicted by an angry parson--not in passages of mere abuse, as
_e.g._ "Thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou coward in
heart, word and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile"; for epithets such as
these are of no use to a biographer--but in places where Marvell is at
least made to sit for the portrait, however ill-natured.

"And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with
the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents
and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and
from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, bu