es as the Grand Seignior has titles of
honour; for setting aside the vulgar and familiar ones of Rogue, Rascal,
Dog, and Thief (which may be taken by way of endearment as well as out of
prejudice and offence), as also those of more certain signification, as
Malicious Rogue, Ill-Natured Rascal, Lay Dog, and Spiteful Thief.' He had
also, he said, been called Rebel, Traitor, Scot, Sadducee, and Socinian.
Among the most elaborate replies to his work were: _An Answer to a Letter
of Enquiry into the Ground, _etc.. 1671; _A Vindication of the Clergy from
the Contempt imposed upon them, By the author of the Grounds_ etc., 1672;
_Hieragonisticon, or Corah's Doom, being an Answer to_, etc., 1672; _An
Answer to two Letters of T.B._, etc., 1673. The occasional references to
it in the theological literature of these times are indeed innumerable.
Many affected to treat him as a mere buffoon--the concoctor, as one
bitterly put it, of 'a pretty fardle of tales bundled together, and they
have had the hap to fall into such hands as had rather lose a friend, not
to say their country, than a jest.' Anthony Wood, writing at the time of
its appearance, classes it with 'the fooleries, playes, poems, and
drolling books,' with which, as he bitterly complains, people were 'taken
with' coupling with it Marvell's _Rehearsal Transposed_ and Butler's
_Hudibras_.[4]

To some of his opponents Eachard replied. Of his method of conducting
controversy, in which it is clear that he perfectly revelled, I
give a short specimen. It is from his letter to the author of
_Hieragonisticon_:--

'You may possibly think, sir, that I have read your book, but if you do
you are most mistaken. For as long as I can get Tolambu's _History of
Mustard_, Frederigo _Devastation of Pepper, The Dragon_, with cuts,
Mandringo's _Pismires rebuffeted_ and _retro-confounded, Is qui me
dubitat, or a flap against the Maggot of Heresie, Efflorescentina
Flosculorum_, or a choice collection of F. (_sic_) Withers _Poems_ or the
like, I do not intend to meddle with it. Alas, sir, I am as unlikely to
read your book that I can't get down the title no more than a duck can
swallow a yoked heifer'--and then follows an imitation of gulps straining
at the divided syllables of Hieragonisticon.

There is no reason to suspect the sincerity of Eachard, or to doubt that
he was, in his own words, an honest and hearty wisher that 'the best of
the clergy might for ever continue, as they are, rich and l