Parker’s Reproof, published in 1673, is less argumentative and naturally enough more personal than the Ecclesiastical Politie.  Any use I now make of it will be purely biographical.  Let us see Andrew Marvell depicted by an angry parson—­not in passages of mere abuse, as e.g. “Thou dastard Craven, thou Swad, thou Mushroom, thou coward in heart, word and deed, thou Judas, thou Crocodile”; for epithets such as these are of no use to a biographer—­but in places where Marvell is at least made to sit for the portrait, however ill-natured.

“And if I would study revenge I could easily have requited you with the Novels of a certain Jack Gentleman, that was born of pure parents and bred among cabin-boys, and sent from school to the University and from the University to the Gaming Ordinaries, but the young man, being easily rooked by the old Gamesters, he was sent abroad to gain courage and experience, and beyond sea saw the Bears of Berne and the large race of Capons at Geneva, and a great many fine sights beside, and so returned home as accomplished as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet.” ...  “And now to conclude; is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries, that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of a Watch, that has travelled abroad and seen as many men and countries as the famous Vertuosi, Sorbier and Coriat, that has heard the City Lions roar, that has past the Alps and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy, that has sat in the Porphyric Chair at Rome, that can describe the methods of the Elections of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Cardinals, that has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home, that has read Plays and Histories and Gazettes; that I say a Gentleman thus accomplished and embellished within and without and all over, should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonery.”—­(Reproof, pp. 270, 274-5.)[170:1]

Marvell was very little over fifty years of his age at this time, nor is Parker’s portrait to be regarded as truthful in any other particular—­yet something of a man’s character may be discovered by noticing the way he is abused by those who want to abuse him.

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:—­