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NTRODUCTION tbe miaiGters, Being go much in sympatbi^■with the NonconformiaiB that it is difiicult taknow whether he was bimself a DiEeeater or anan of L.aw Church views, he ws,b even morefierce against the High Church party. CEarendon,tberefore, in whose impeacbmeDt he took a part,wa$ in his eyes doubly detestable. Succ^sivechanges in ministers, however, instead of leadingCo any improvement only made matters worse;and when, \a 1673, the effect of ihe Dovertreaty began to be seen, and it became a.pparentthat the King himself was the woret man in tgovemmcnt, Marveli's " wrath at the degrtioo. of hiE country, and the eceming hopelefisniof the struggle," made him sometimes appto be what he was not, in principle, underCdmmuuwealth — a lierce Republican and a bittwopponent of the EBtablished Church, Whetherfrom the o!d prejudice agatngt Hoiilaod, or froia seflse of tbe difficulty in merely deposiJames If., if he were permitted ta ascend tthrone, in favour of a foj-dgn prince, he waiDoable to foresee a ftiCure liberator in Willjaiof Orange j and what hope he profesBedhave in tbe Stoan line was for a little whi(i;sed on the Duke of Monmoutb. This hope,however, was very slight ; his principal aimeeems to have been to bring about a conditionof public feeling which should lead to the 11^ INTRODUCTION ^-eEtablishmeot of the Commonweahh, notimmediately, bui on the death qf Charles II.He feared the Diike of York much more thandetested the "poor Priapua king."Marvetl did Dot live to see any impravemecitin the Stale, flor did he Ijccome generally knownID his tifetime as a satiriat, foi his rersee werepublished aoopymouHly, He had no wish topurchase any fame by them at the price of death-He preferred to live atid write more. It wasby his prose works thai he not only acquired areptitatioti second to oone of his conteitiporarieH,but etFected a great change in the religious con-cr-ovecBy of his time. It had beea proposed byBishops Wilkins, Tillotson and Stillingfieet,among others, that a bill ehould he brought intoFarllameDt for a teconciiiaitioD between theChurch and the Presbyterians, The project re-lated mainly to those things which the King hadpromi&ed by his declarntiun of 1660, but it wasTcbemently opposed by the High Church party,and an extraordinary vote was passed againetbringing in a measure for any treaty. Not con-teat with charging the Dissenters with falseDotJODS in religion^ their opponents also accusedthem of being inclined to immorality. ThemoS't Tirulent and famous attack was m^ide bySamuel Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxtord,ID a worh. wherein the coarsete butFoonery and
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