Of a very different order to Chamberlayne's work is the remarkable tract which follows. The author, John Eachard, was born about 1636, at what date is doubtful, but he was admitted into Catherine Hall, Cambridge, in May 1653. Becoming Fellow of the Hall in 1658, he was chosen, on the death of Dr. Lightfoot, Master. His perfectly uneventful life closed on the 7th of July 1697. Personally he was a facetious and agreeable man, and had the reputation of being rather a wit and humorist than a divine and scholar. Baker complained of his inferiority as a preacher; and Swift, observing 'that men who are happy enough at ridicule are sometimes perfectly stupid upon grave subjects,' gives Eachard as an instance. _The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion enquired into, In a letter written to R.L._, appeared anonymously in 1670. This anonymity Eachard carefully preserved during the controversies which it occasioned. It is difficult to understand how any one after reading the preface could have misunderstood the purpose of the book. But Eachard's fate was Swift's fate afterwards, though there was more excuse for the High Church party missing the point of the _Tale of a Tub_ than for the clergy generally missing that of Eachard's plea for them. Ridicule is always a dangerous ally, especially when directed against an institution or community, for men naturally identify themselves with the body of which they are members, and resent as individuals what reflects on them collectively. When one of the opponents of Barnabus Oley in his preface to Herbert's _Country Parson_ observed: 'The pretence of your book was to _show_ the occasions, your book is _become_ the occasion of the contempt of God's ministers,' he expressed what the majority of the clergy felt. The storm burst at once, and the storm raged for months. 'I have had,' wrote Eachard in one of his many rejoinders, 'as many several names as the Grand Seignior has titles of honour; for setting aside the vulgar and familiar ones of Rogue, Rascal, Dog, and Thief (which may be taken by way of endearment as well as out of prejudice and offence), as also those of more certain signification, as Malicious Rogue, Ill-Natured Rascal, Lay Dog, and Spiteful Thief.' He had also, he said, been called Rebel, Traitor, Scot, Sadducee, and Socinian. Among the most elaborate replies to his work were: _An Answer to a Letter of Enquiry into the Ground, _etc.. 1671; _A Vindication of the Clergy from the Contempt imposed upon them, By the author of the Grounds_ etc., 1672; _Hieragonisticon, or Corah's Doom, being an Answer to_, etc., 1672; _An Answer to two Letters of T.B._, etc., 1673. The occasional references to it in the theological literature of these times are indeed innumerable. Many affected to treat him as a mere buffoon--the concoctor, as one bitterly put it, of 'a pretty fardle of tales bundled together, and they have had the hap to fall into such hands as had rather lose a friend, not