way to answer it. However I will for mine own private
satisfaction forthwith draw up an answer that shall have as much of
spirit and solidity in it as my ability will afford and the age we
live in will endure. I am, if I may say it with reverence, drawn in I
hope by a good Providence to intermeddle on a noble and high
argument. But I desire that all the discourse of my friends may run
as if no answer ought to be expected to so scurrilous a
book."--(_Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland Papers_, iii. 337.)

The title-page of the Second Part of the _Rehearsal Transprosed_ is a
curiosity:--

THE
REHEARSALL
TRANSPROS'D:

* * * * *

THE SECOND PART.

* * * * *

Occasioned by Two Letters: The first Printed
by a nameless Author, Intituled, A
Reproof, etc.

The Second Letter left for me at a Friends
House, Dated Nov. 3, 1673. Subscribed
J.G. and concluding with these words;
If thou darest to Print or Publish any
Lie or Libel against Doctor Parker, By
the Eternal God I will cut thy Throat.

* * * * *

Answered by ANDREW MARVEL.

* * * * *

LONDON,

Printed for Nathaniel Ponder at the Peacock
in Chancery Lane near Fleet-Street, 1673.

The _Second Part_ is an exceedingly witty though too lengthy a
performance. Marvell's "companion picture" of Parker is full of matter,
and of the very spirit of the times. Some of it must be given:--

"But though he came of a good mother, he had a very ill sire. He was
a man bred toward the Law, and betook himself, as his best practice,
to be a sub-committee-man, or, as the stile ran, one of the Assistant
Committee in Northamptonshire. In the rapine of that employment, and
what he got by picking the teeth of his masters, he sustain'd himself
till he had raked together some little estate. And then, being a man
for the purpose, and that had begun his fortune out of the
sequestration of the estates of the King's Party, he, to perfect it
the more, proceeded to take away their lives; not in the hot and
military way (which diminishes always the offence), but in the cooler
blood and sedentary execution of an High Court of Justice.
Accordingly he was preferr'd to be one of that nu