Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/141

Rh was an avowed enemy to Marvel, ‘that Dr. Parker judged it more prudent rather to lay down the cudgels, than to enter the liſts again, with an untowardly combatant, ſo hugely well verſed, and experienced, in the then newly refined art of ſporting, and jeering buffoonery.’ And biſhop Burnet tells us in the Hiſtory of his own Time, ‘That Dr. Parker, after he had for ſome years entertained the nation with ſeveral virulent books, was attacked by the livelieſt droll of the age, who wrote in a burleſque ſtile, but with ſo peculiar, and entertaining a conduct, that from the King down to the tradeſman, his book was read with great pleaſure. This not only humbled Parker, but the whole party, for the author of The Rehearſal Tranſpoſed, had all the men of wit on his ſide.’ Dr. Swift likewiſe in his Apology for the Tale of a Tub, ſpeaking of the uſual fate of common anſwerers to books, and how ſhort-lived their labours are, obſerves, ‘That there is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expoſe a fooliſh piece; ſo we ſtill read Marvel’s anſwer to Parker with pleaſure, though the book it anſwers be ſunk long ago.’

The next controverſy in which we find Mr. Marvel engaged, was with an antagoniſt of the pious Dr. Croft, biſhop of Hereford, who wrote a diſcourſe entitled The Naked Truth, or A True State of the Primitive Church: By an humble Moderator. Dr. Turner, fellow of St. John’s College, wrote Animadverſions upon this book; Mr. Marvel’s anſwer to theſe Animadverſions, was entitled Mr. Smirk, or The Divide in Mode; being certain Annotations upon the Animadverſions on The Naked Truth, together with a Short Hiſtorical Eſſay concerning General Councils, Creeds,