The Rehearsal soon elicited several replies; | some of them written in awkward imitation of Marvell's style of banter, and all now deservedly forgotten. Parker himself remained for a long while silent, but at length came forth with a Reproof of the Rehearsal Transprosed, wherein he urged the Government to crush Marvell as a pestilent wit," and stigmatized him as "the servant of Cromwell, and the friend of Milton." It was but natural that Marvell should retort, and he accordingly wrote and published what is called the "second part" of the Rehearsal. He was, moreover, constrained to it by a pithy anonymous epistle, signed "T. G.," left for him at a friend's house, and concluding with these words," If thou darest to print any lie or libel against Dr. Parker, by the eternal God, I will cut thy throat! A man of Marvell's boldness was not to be intimidated, and he straightway printed this pleasant document in the title-page of his reply. To this publication Parker attempted no rejoinder. Anthony Wood informs us that the said Parker "judged it more prudent to lay down the cudgels, than to enter the lists again with an untowardly combatant, so hugely well versed and experienced in the then newlyrefined art, though much in mode and fashion ever since, of sporting and jeering buffoonery. It was generally thought, however, by many of those who were otherwise favorers of Parker's cause, that the victory lay on Marvell's side, and it wrought this good effect on Parker, that for ever after it took down his great spirit." Burnet tells us further, withdrew from the town, and ceased writing for some years."

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No adequate notion of this, the most considerable and curious of Marvell's writings, could be given by any such selection of extracts as could be inserted in these pages. Indeed it would be very difficult, even with the most copious quotations, to convey any thing like the impression which the work itself must have originally produced. As a writer in the Edinburgh Review has said, "The allusions are often so obscure--the wit of one page is so dependent on that of another the humor and pleasantry are so continuous-and the character of the work from its very nature is so excursive, that its merits can be fully appreciated only on a regular perusal." There are other reasons also why any lengthened citations cannot be given. "The work has faults which would, in innumerable cases, disguise its real merits from modern readers, or rather altogether deter them from giving it a reading. It is

characterized by much of the coarseness which was so prevalent in that age, and from which Marvell was by no means free; though his spirit was far from partaking of the malevolence of ordinary satirists.' It is not to be inferred, however, that the merit of the Rehearsal Transprosed consists solely in wit and banter. Amidst all its ludicrous levities, there is, as D'Israeli has remarked, "a vehemence of solemn reproof, and an eloquence of invective, that awes one with the spirit of the modern Junius;" and, as the critic above quoted subjoins, "there are many passages of very powerful reasoning, in advocacy of truths then but ill understood, and of rights which had been shamefully violated."

About three years after the publication of the second part of the Rehearsal, Marvell's "chivalrous love of justice" impelled him into another controversy. In 1675, Dr. Croft, Bishop of Hereford, had published a work entitled, "The Naked Truth; or, the true state of the Primitive Church; by a humble Moderator." This work enjoined on all religious parties the unwelcome duties of charity and forbearance; but as it especially exposed the danger and folly of enforcing a minute uniformity, such as was then so generally demanded by the High-Church intol erants, it could not be suffered to pass unchallenged by the leaders and guides of that trenchant faction. It was accordingly attacked, with a considerable display of petulance, by Dr. Francis Turner, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, in a pamphlet entitled, "Animadversions on the Naked Truth." Provoked by the unfairness and asperity of this production, our satirist replied to it in another pamphlet, which he entitled, "Mr. Smirke; or, the Divine in Mode." He here fits the object of his banter with a characte out of Etheredge's "Man in Mode," as he had before fitted Parker with one from Buckingham's "Rehearsal." The merits and defects of this performance are considered to be of much the same order as those of his former work, though it is, perhaps, somewhat less disfigured by vehemence and coarseness. On Dr. Croft's pamphlet he has one remark which beautifully expresses his admiration of the work, and indicates a feeling of which many persons must have been conscious, when perusing other works of eminent superiority, "It is a book of that kind," says he, "that no Christian can persue without wishing himself to have been the author,

*Ed. Rev. No. 159.

All this is very pleasant and facetious. But it seems Marvell's intrepid patriotism and witty writings rendered him extremely odious to the court, and especially to James, Duke of York, and heir presumptive to the crown. As already mentioned, he was frequently compelled to conceal himself out of dread of assassination. He died, however, to all appearance, peaceably in his bed, on the 16th August, 1678-the year in which his obnoxious work on the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government was published; but as he was in vigorous health immediately before, strong suspicions have been entertained that he was poisoned. We know of no evidence in support of these suspicions, so that, probably, there were no grounds for them, as we are all aware that strong and vigorous men have not unseldom died suddenly.

Aubrey describes Marvell as being in person "of a middling stature, pretty strong-set, roundish-faced, cherry-checked, hazel-eyed, brown-haired," the very figure of a jolly Yorkshireman. He adds, that in conversation he was modest and of very few words; and was wont to say, "he would not drink high or freely with any one with whom he could not trust his life.' Who would? Of his collected works, we believe there is no complete edition. Cooke's edition, published in 1726, contains only his poems and some of his private letters. That of Captain Thompson, in three volumes quarto, published in 1776, is not considered quite complete, and is very indifferently edited. There may be other editions, but if so, they are unknown to the present writer. The "Life of Andrew Marvell, with Extracts from his Prose and Poetical Works, by John Dove," (1832,) is, we believe, the fullest and most recent account we have of this distinguished patriot; and, perhaps, the passages selected will, to ordinary readers, prove the most interesting and agreeable portions of his writings.

"The characteristic attribute of Marvell's genius," says the Edinburgh critic already quoted, "was unquestionably wit, in all the attributes of which-brief sententious sarcasm, fierce invective, light raillery, grave irony, and broad laughing humor-he seems to have been by nature almost equally fitted to excel. To say that he has equally excel

from his writings. The activity with which his mind suggests ludicrous images and analogies is astonishing. He often absolutely startles us by the remoteness and oddity of the sources from which they are supplied, and by the unexpected ingenuity and felicity of his repartees. His forte, however, appears to be a grave ironical banter, which he often pursues at such a length, that there seems no limit to his fertility of invention. In his endless accumulation of ludicrous images and allusions, the untiring exhaustive ridicule with which he will play upon the same topics, he is unique; yet this peculiarity not seldom leads him to drain the generous wine even to the dregs, to spoil a series of felicitous railleries by some far-fetched conceit or unpardonable extravagance."

But whoever supposes Marvell to have been nothing but a wit, simply on account of the predominance of that quality, will do him great injustice. As the same writer remarks:-"It is the common lot of such men, in whom some one faculty is found on a great scale, to fail of part of the admiration due to other endowments; possessed in more moderate degree, indeed, but still in a degree far from ordinary. We are subject to the same illusion in gazing on mountain scenery. Fixing our eye on some solitary peak, which towers far above the rest, the groups of surrounding hills look positively diminutive, though they may, in fact, be all of great magnitude." Though wit was his most predominating endowment, the rest of Marvell's talents were all of a high order of development. His judgment was remarkably clear and sound, his logic ingenious and adroit, his sagacity in practical affairs admi rable, his talents for business apparently of the first order, and his industry in whatever he undertook steady and indefatigable. He had all the qualities which would have enabled him to succeed in almost any department of exertion; while in regard to candor, strict integrity, and all the solid merits which render a man honorable and worthy, he was not surpassed by any man of his generation.

Marvell has some, though not very considerable reputation as a poet. His poems are, for the most part, quaint, fantastic, uncouth in rhythm; but there are a few pieces which display both beauty of thought and no indifferent elegance of expression. The "Emigrants in Bermudas," a " Dialogue between Body and Soul," The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn," and a

"Dialogue between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure," though all more or less unequal, contain nevertheless many sweet and pleasant lines. Besides these, there are some satirical pieces which, though largely disfigured by the characteristic defects of the age, are upon the whole highly felicitous and amusing. A few lines from a whimsical Satire on Holland may not be unacceptable, by way of enlivening the growing dulness of the present paper:

"Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but the off-scouring of the British sand,
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heaved the lead;
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.

Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,
They with mad labor fish'd the land to shore;
And dived as desperately for each piece
Of earth, as if it had been of ambergrease,
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,
Less than what building swallows bear away;

satire, he did manful service in the cause of virtue, by assailing, and to some extent subduing various principalities and powers of despicability and corruption. By exposing and rendering contemptible the False, he vindicated and did honor to the True. Thus, he did not live his life in vain; nor did the influence of his activity or of his example cease when his own existence terminated. Though dead, and imperfectly remembered, he nevertheless speaketh through that transmitted and ever-present power which belongs inseparably to goodness. The uttered word may cease to be repeated, but the spirit of truth, whose manifestation and embodiment it was, departs not out of the world, but like an invisible electric current, circulates with an enduring efficacy throughout the whole development of humanity.

Personally, Marvell is memorable mainly for his high integrity and moral worth. It is this which attracts, and will continue to attract the admiration of posterity, more than anything which he actually accomplished by means of his particular endowments. His steadfast and inflexible abidance by an individual uprightness and sincerity, when all the rewards and enticements of life thronged round him like syren shapes to beguile him into apostasy, is a grand and striking spectacle, the rarity and the beauty whereof will never fail to command the earnest homage of mankind. Admiring men have called him the "British Aristides," and certainly no other man connected with our history can be mentioned who has more honestly deserved the honor thus attributed.