The fish ofttimes the burgher dispossessed,
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest."

This final conceit greatly tickled the fancy of Charles Lamb, who was
perhaps the first of the moderns to rediscover both the rare merits and
the curiosities of our author. Hazlitt thought poorly of the jest.[61:1]

Marvell proceeds with his ridicule to attack the magistrates:--

"For, as with pygmies, who best kills the crane;
Among the hungry, he that treasures grain;
Among the blind, the one-eyed blinkard reigns;
So rules among the drowned, he that drains:
Not who first see the rising sun, commands,
But who could first discern the rising lands;
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak,
Him they their Lord, and Country's Father, speak;
To make a bank, was a great plot of state;
Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate."[62:1]

When the war-fever was raging such humour as this may well have passed
muster with the crowd.

The incident--there is always an "incident"--which served as the actual
excuse for hostilities, is referred to as follows:--

"Let this one courtesy witness all the rest,
When their whole navy they together pressed,
Not Christian captives to redeem from bands,
Or intercept the western golden sands,