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compliances would be more becoming and effectual, than in enforcing uniformity by penalties and persecution. The whole is written with great plainness and piety, as well as with much force of argument and learning. If we consider the temper of those times, we need not wonder that this work was immediately replied to with much heat and zeal, not to use the harsher terms of fury and resentment. It was first attacked by Dr. FRANCIS TURNER, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, a great defender of ecclesiastical tyranny, and the imposition of human creeds, in a pamphlet entitled " Animadversions on the Naked Truth." This pamphlet was penned, like all the rest of the writings of the same author, in an affected, but flowing style. It was replied to, with great vivacity, by Marvell, in a work entitled "Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode." He made him a second Bayes, as he had done Parker before, in “The Rehearsal Transprosed." Marvell, in speaking of Bishop Croft's works, says,

"It is a treatise which, if not for its opposer, needs no commendation being writ with that evidence and demonstration of truth, that all sober men cannot but give their assent, and consent to it unasked. It is a book of that kind, that no Christian can peruse it without wishing himself to have been the author, and almost imagining that he is so: the conceptions therein being of so eternal idea, that every man finds it to be but a copy of the original in his own mind."

Marvell had a peculiar knack of calling names: it

FRANCIS TURNER, was the son of Dr. Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. He received his education at New College, in Oxford. In 1670 he was preferred to the Mastership of St. John's College, Cambridge. He was afterwards advanced to the Deanery of Windsor, which he held together with the Bishopric of Rochester. He was deprived for not taking the new oaths, 1st February, 1689-90. The next year he was accused of being a conspirator in a plot of Nonjurors, for restoring King James, for which some of that party were imprisoned; but he thought it prudent to abscond. A proclamation was soon after issued for apprehending him as a traitor.

consisted in appropriating a ludicrous character in some popular comedy, and dubbing his adversaries with it. In this spirit, he ridiculed Dr. TURNER, by giving him the name of a chaplain in ETHEREGE's "Man of Mode,” and thus, with a stroke of the pen, conveyed an idea of "a neat, starched, formal, and forward divine." This application of a fictitious character to a real one-this christening a man with ridicule-though of no difficult invention, will prove not a little hazardous to inferior writers; for it requires not less wit than Marvell's to bring out of the real character, the ludicrous features which mark the prototype.

In return for this defence of his work, the Bishop of Hereford wrote the following letter to Marvell:

"SIR,

I choose to run some hazard of this, (having noe certain information) rather than incurre your censure of ingratitude to the person who hath set forth Mr. Smirke in so trim and proper a dresse, unto whose hands I hope this will happily arrive, to render him due thanks for the humane civility, and christian charity shewed to the author of Naked Truth, so bespotted with the dirty language of foule-mouthed beasts, whoe, though he feared much his own weaknesse, yet, by God's undeserved grace, is so strengthened, as not at all to be dejected, or much concerned with such snarling curs, though sett on by many spightfull hands and hearts, of a high stamp, but as base alloy. I cannot yet get a sight of what the BISHOP OF ELY (Turner) hath certainly printed; but keeps very close, to put forth, I suppose the next approaching Session of Parliament, when there cannot be time to make a reply; for I have just cause to feare the session will be short. Sir, this assures you, that you have the zealous prayers, and hearty service of the author of Naked Truth, your humble servant.

July, 1676.

H. C."

In answer to this Letter from Bishop Croft, Marvell writes to him:

"MY LORD,

Upon Tuesday night last I received your thanks for that which could not deserve your pardon; for great is your goodnesse to professe a gratitude, where you had a justifiable reason for your clemency; for notwithstanding the ill-treatment you received from others, 'tis I that have given you the highest provocation. A good cause receives more injury from a weak defence, than from a frivolous accusation; and the ill that does a man no harm, is to be preferred before the good that creates him a prejudice: but your Lordship's generosity is not, I see, to be reformed by the most exquisite patterns of ill-nature; and while perverse men have made a crime of your virtue, yet 'tis your pleasure to convert the obligation I have placed upon you into a civility.

Indeed, I meant all well, but 'tis not every one's good fortune to light into hands where he may escape; and for a man of good intentions, lesse than this I could not say in due and humble acknowledgment, and your favourable interpretation of me; for the rest, I most heartily rejoice to understand, that the same God who hath chosen you out to beare so eminent a testimony to his truth, hath given you also that Christian magnanimity to hold up, without any depression of spirit, against its and your opposers: what they intend further, I know not, neither am I curious; my soul shall not enter into their secrets; but as long as God shall lend you life and health, I reckon our church is indefectible; may he, therefore, long preserve you to his honour, and further service, which shall be the constant prayer of, My Lord,

Your Lordship's most humble,
And most faithful Servant,
ANDREW MARVELL."

London, July 16th, 1676.

Marvell was also the author of several valuable political tracts, advocating frequent Parliaments as the spirit of the English Constitution, and of many admirable pamphlets on religious liberty. His political facetiæ, although

extremely witty and caustic, are generally interwoven with references to persons and public occurrences, now gone to "the tomb of the Capulets." From his "Historical Essay concerning general Councils, Creeds, and Impositions in matters of Religion," which is a continuation of the defence of Naked Truth, and shows the absurdity of imposing articles of faith, we give the following

extract:

"It were good that the greater Churchmen relied more upon themselves, and their own direction, not building too much upon stripling chaplains, that men may not suppose the masters (as one that has a good horse, or a fleet hound) attributes to himself the virtues of his creature. That they inspect the morals of the clergy: the moral Heretics do the church more harm than all the Nonconformists can do, or can wish it. That before they admit men to subscribe the thirty-nine articles for a benefice, they try whether they know the meaning. That they would much recommend to them the reading of the bible. It is a very good book, and if a man read it carefully, will make him much wiser. That they would advise them to keep the Sabbath: if there were no morality in the day, yet there is a great deal of prudence in the observing it. That they would instruct those that come for holy orders and livings, that it is a terrible vocation they enter upon; but that has indeed the greatest reward. That to gain a love is beyond all the acquists of traffic, and to convert an atheist, more glorious than all the conquests of the soldier. That betaking themselves to this spiritual warfare, they ought to be disentangled from the world. That they do not ride for a benefice, as if it were for a fortune or a mistress; but there is more in it. That they take the ministry up not as a trade. That they make them understand, as well as they can, what is the grace of God. That they do not come into the pulpit too full of fustian or logic; a good life is a clergyman's best syllogism, and the quaintest oratory; and until they outlive them, they will never get the better of the fanatics, nor be able to preach with demonstration and spirit, or with any effect or authority. That they be lowly minded, and no railers.

"But to the judicious and serious reader, to whom I wish any thing I have said may have given no unwelcome entertainment, I

shall only so far justify myself, that I thought it no less concerned me to vindicate the laity from the impositions that the Jew would force upon them, than others to defend those impositions on behalf of the clergy. But the Rev. Mr. HOOKER, in his Ecclesiastical Polity,' says, 'The time will come when three words, uttered with charity and meekness, shall receive a far more blessed reward, than three thousand volumes, written with disdainful sharpness of wit.' And I shall conclude.

"I trust in the Almighty, that with us, contentions are now at the highest float, and that the day will come (for what cause is there of despair) when the possessions of former enmity being allaid, men shall with ten times redoubled tokens of unfeignedly reconciled love, shew themselves each to other the same which Joseph, and the brethren of Joseph, were at the time of their interview in Egypt. And upon this condition, let my book also (yea myself, if it were needful) be burnt by the hands of those enemies to the peace and tranquillity of the religion of England."

pa

In this work Marvell gives a full account of the general Council of Nice, and states the ill consequences of such unhappy debates. A persecuting spirit in the times, drives the greatest men to take refuge in the arts of subterfuge. Compelled to disguise their sentiments, they will not suppress them; and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all that ridicule and irony, with which ingenious minds, when forced to, have never failed to try the tience, or the sagacity of intolerance. SHAFTESBURY has thrown out, on this head, some important truths.— "If men are forbid to speak their minds seriously, they will do it ironically. If they find it dangerous to do so, they will then redouble their disguise, and talk so as hardly to be understood. The persecuting spirit raises the bantering one: the higher the slavery, the more exquisite the buffoonery." To this cause we owe the strong raillery of MARVELL, and the formidable, though gross, burlesque of HICKERINGILL.

Besides the above works, Marvell published other