Marvell, though no orator, or even debater, was the stuff of which controversialists are made. In a letter, printed in the Duke of Portland’s papers, and dated May 3, 1673, he writes:—
“Dr. Parker will be out the next week. I have seen it—already three hundred and thirty pages and it will be much more. (It was five hundred twenty-eight pages.) I perceive by what I have read that it is the rudest book, one or other, that ever was published, I may say since the first invention of printing. Although it handles me so roughly, yet I am not at all amated by it. But I must desire the advice of some few friends to tell me whether it will be proper for me and in what 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.