no doubt, greatly enjoyed it, but I cannot think the former was wise to stuff his plea for Liberty of Conscience so full as he did with the details of a farce.  His doing so should, at all events, acquit him of the charge of being a sour Puritan.  In the Rehearsal Bayes (Dryden), who is turned by Sheridan in his adaptation of the piece into Mr. Puff, is made to produce out of his pocket his book of Drama Commonplaces, and the play proceeds (Johnson and Smith being Sheridan’s Dangle and Sneer): 

   “Johnson. Drama Commonplaces! pray what’s that?

   Bayes. Why, Sir, some certain helps, that we men of Art have found
      it convenient to make use of.

   Johnson. How, Sir, help for Wit?

   Bayes. I, Sir, that’s my position.  And I do here averr, that no man
      yet the Sun e’er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a
      Stage, except it be with the help of these my rules.

   Johnson. What are those Rules, I pray?

   Bayes. Why, Sir, my first Rule is the Rule of Transversion, or
      Regula Duplex, changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into Verse,
      alternative as you please.

   Smith. How’s that, Sir, by a Rule, I pray?

   Bayes. Why, thus, Sir; nothing more easy when understood:  I take a
      Book in my hand, either at home, or elsewhere, for that’s all one,
      if there be any Wit in ’t, as there is no Book but has some, I
      Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose, put it into Verse (but
      that takes up some time), if it be Verse, put it into Prose.

   Johnson. Methinks, Mr. Bayes, that putting Verse into Prose
      should be called Transprosing.

   Bayes.  By my troth, a very good Notion, and hereafter it shall be
      so.”

Marvell must be taken to have meant by his title that he saw some resemblance between Parker and Bayes, and, indeed, he says he does, and gives that as one of his excuses for calling Parker Bayes all through:—­

“But before I commit myself to the dangerous depths of his Discourse which I am now upon the brink of, I would with his leave, make a motion; that instead of Author I may henceforth indifferently well call him Mr. Bayes as oft as I shall see occasion.  And that first because he has no name, or at least will not own it, though he himself writes under the greatest security, and gives us the first letters of other men’s names before he be asked them.  Secondly, because he is, I perceive, a lover of elegancy of style and can endure no man’s tautologies but his own; and therefore I would not distaste him with too frequent repetition of one word.  But chiefly because Mr. Bayes and he do very much symbolise, in their understandings, in their expressions, in their humour, in their contempt and quarrelling