to estimation in the eyes of his new friends. New singularities, however, soon took possession of him. With a professed love of money amounting to avarice, and whilst he was universally supposed to be amassing enormous wealth, he was indulging in secret in the most amorous dissipation and unbounded extravagance. From this dream of delusion he was at last awoke by the necessity of his circumstances, ―he found himself without a penny, and took up a new whim to ascend the highest ladder of ambition. His first idea was to supplant Mazarine as premier of France. With his usual precipitancy and blindness to the most obvious consequences, he instituted all sorts of intrigues to this end, and quickly found himself dismissed from all his employments, and shunned and abandoned by the whole court. He now wandered in a state of positive destitution into the Spanish camp in the Netherlands; but here his fame had preceded him, and none seemed willing to enter into friendship with such an unstable and intriguing character. Yet such was the extraordinary fascination of his manners, and such the address with which he wielded the varied talents which he unquestionably possessed, that in spite of their previous disinclination to intimacy with him, the principal officers in the Spanish army soon found him their trusty companion; and even the celebrated Don John of Austria took him to his bosom as his confidential friend. His next freak was to embrace Catholicism. How far the man was conscientious in this change of religious profession, it does not become us to judge, on the slender evidence we possess on the subject. It is strange, however, that he never seems to have dreamt of his conversion operating to the prejudice of his political advancement in his own country. On presenting himself in England, he was indeed received with external marks of respect by Charles, but no office either in the state or the court was offered to him; and, in his blindness to what must have been obvious to every other person but himself, he imputed the neglect with which he was treated to the malignant influence of Clarendon. His bitterness soon manifested itself in the charge of high treason which he preferred against the chancellor in the house of peers, on the 10th of July, 1663. The measure, as might have been anticipated by any one else but himself, ended in his own disgrace. He remained for two years concealed, or rather affecting to conceal himself; at last the duchess of Cleveland obtained a private audience for him with Charles. From this period, his public life may be regarded as having closed. He died on the 20th of March, 1677, at Chelsea, where he was buried. Andrew Marvell. BORN A. D. 1620.-DIED A. D. 1678. THIS eminent English statesman and poet, who has been honoured with the name of the British Aristides,' was the son of a respectable clergyman of the church of England. He was born at Kingston-uponHull, on the 15th of November, 1620, and probably received the first rudiments of education under his father, whom Echard calls the facetious Calvinistic minister of Hull.' Young Marvell was early distinguish ed for remarkable proficiency and quickness of mind. Indeed, at fifteen years of age, his father sent him to Cambridge, where he was admitted, in 1635, as a student at Trinity college: Mr Cooke, the editor of the edition of his works in 1726, erroneously states this as on the 14th of December, 1633; but the admission-book of Trinity college has the following entry, p. 266,"13th April, 1638. Andrew Marvell juratus et admissus," which is the record of his election to a scholarship on the foundation. We have no evidence of his attaining academical honours, or towards what profession he directed his studies. The Jesuits, who were then making converts with industrious proselytism among the young men of distinguished abilities, inveigled Marvell from college to London, where his father followed and rescued him from their fangs; and it appears, that, like every youthful mind of ardent and undisciplined feeling, he went through the usual course of rapidly succeeding extremes and inconsistent opinions. So powerful and vigorous an intellect could not but subside into rational and wise views of the principles of human conduct, and the civil government of man; and in proportion to the difficulty of discovering truth, is the usual estimation of its value. From the time of his admission on the foundation at Trinity college, in 1638, to the year 1640, in which he lost his father, he appears to have pursued his studies with indefatigable application; that event seems to have given some new character to his views and prospects which, at this distance of time, and with the scanty information of his early life, cannot now be discovered. It is certain, however, that he gave up his residence at college: and, with other students, absented himself so long from his exercises, that the masters and seniors came to a resolution on the 24th of September, 1641, to refuse them the benefits of the college, and gave them three months to make the amende honorable. Marvell does not appear to have manifested any penitence, but was publicly expelled for non-residence. This story, however, probably means nothing more than that Marvell, as a scholar, did not take his degree at the regular time, which, by the rules of Trinity college, now vacates of scholarship, and, which probably did at the time and in the instance in question. Captain Thompson, his last biographer, supposes that this intermission of his studies and residence was caused by new snares of the Jesuits; but this is improbable,—a burnt child dreads the fire. It is much more probable, that the political turmoils which preceded the breaking out of the civil wars, engaged his attention; and that a small independency, on the death of his father, relieved him from the necessity of earning his bread in the dry and uninteresting study of technical law. But however this may be, he appears to have extended the plan of his education, in travelling abroad some considerable time, "through most of the polite parts of Europe." His poem of Flecnoe, a humorous satire on an Irish priest at Rome, Richard Flecnoe, an incorrigible poetaster, is the first recorded instance of his satirical writing; though possessing considerable humour, it is composed in a slovenly metre. It has, however, the 1 Marvell thus speaks of his father in 'The Rehearsal Transposed:'-" He died before the war broke out, having lived with some reputation both for piety and learning; and was, moreover, a conformist to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, though I confess none of the most over-running or eager in them." merit of originating one of the best satirical poems in the language, Dryden's M Flecnoe against the lambent dulness' of Thomas Shadwell. It has been supposed that Marvell, at this time, made his first acquaintance with Milton, who was then in Italy; and who, though twelve years older than Marvell, had left Christ's college only four years before the date of the latter's admission. "At Rome," says Hartley Coleridge, "Marvell first saw Milton, then a young and enamoured roamer in classic lands, who was soon to make 'all Europe ring from side to side,' already a poet, not of promise merely, but of high achievement, in the flower of manly beauty, in the vernal warmth of high and generous daring; not even in the proudest days of her Republic, had Rome to boast two nobler youths than Milton and Marvell. No doubt they sympathised in passionate indignation to see priestcraft throned on the seven hills. D'Israeli has written a book upon the 'Quarrels of Authors,' why does not he, or somebody else, write one about the Friendships of Authors?' Why is it, that the little good that has been on earth has never found an historian ?" 6 In Paris, Marvell wrote a severe poem on one Lancelot Joseph de Maniban, a whimsical abbot, who pretended to prognosticate the fortunes of people by the character of their hand-writing. After his return home, we hear no more of Marvell for the space of twelve years. Some of his biographers, determined to fill up the chasm, have sent him as secretary to a Turkey embassy; but unluckily it does not appear that Cromwell had any minister at the Ottoman court. This long blank in the biography of such a man, at such an era, is unaccountable; though it cannot be doubted, from subsequent circumstances, that he must have been the warm and bold friend of the popular party. In 1653, by the transcript of a curious letter from him to Oliver Cromwell, the original of which is unknown, the latter, it appears, had appointed him tutor to his nephew. This letter is extremely interesting, and, in some degree, unfolds Marvell's opinion on education; he writes that his pupil was of a "gentle and waxen disposition;" that " he hath in him two things which make youth most easy to be managed,-modesty, which is the bridle to vice-and emulation, which is the spur to virtue." There is more wisdom in the simplicity and tenderness of these sentiments than first meets the eye. In the second part of the Rehearsal Transposed, he says, in reply to some reproaches of Dr Parker, "I never had any not the remotest relation to public matters, nor correspondence with the persons then predominant, till the year 1657, when, indeed, I entered into an employment, for which I was not altogether improper, and which I consider to be the most innocent and inoffensive towards his majesty's affairs, of any in that usurped and irregular government, to which all men were then exposed." This office was that of assistant Latin secretary to the commonwealth, with Milton; which sufficiently proves he was an accomplished scholar, and of tried integrity. It is true, that the sentence above quoted betrays a great dissatisfaction at the issue of the struggle for liberty in Cromwell's usurpation; and it is more than probable, that Marvell, with Fairfax, and many other of the great characters of the times, in the choice of evils, longed for the Restoration. From the death of Cromwell till the parliament of the 25th of April, He 1660, we have no account of Marvell, although he was elected in 1658 member of the town of Hull. His parliamentary career was remarkable for patriotism and genius; he was the bold advocate of the people, with assassination staring him in the face, "when truth and chastity were crimes in the lewd circle of Charles' siren court," and when a general prostitution of public integrity made patriotism singular and vulgar. He corresponded every post with his constituents, which is said to be the last instance of that valuable relation between representatives and their suffragans. This correspondence still exists in the corporation's records of Hull; and Captain Thompson published a considerable portion in his edition of Marvell's works. The letters are highly curious for their historical and parliamentary information. In one of them we find him thanking the corporation conjunctively with his colleague, for a barrel of ale: "We must give you thanks for the kind present you were pleased to send us, which will occasion us to remember you often; but the quantity is so great that it might make many sober men forgetful." "The most remarkable feature in his parliamentary despatches," says Hartley Coleridge, "is, that he scarcely ever speaks of himself. says little or nothing of his own aid or opposition to any particular measure, though it is not difficult to perceive the drift of his opinions. To his private affairs he scarcely alludes, unless it be to thank the corporation for some present or inquiry. He, indeed, manifestly writes under some degree of restraint, knowing that the sanctity of a seal is not always respected by a jealous government in perilous times. The first letters, from November 20th to December 29th, refer chiefly to the settlement of the revenue; the excise, half of which was given to the king for life, and the other half granted in perpetuum to the Crown; the abolition of the Court of Wards; the £70,000 per month for the disbanding of the army; the tonnage and poundage; the £100,000 to be raised upon lands in the several counties, (the apportioning of which gave rise, as might be expected, to much and angry discussion,) which £100,000 was afterwards levied upon the excise of ale and beer; and the £1,200,000 to be settled upon his majesty. The Act of Indemnity, and the trial of the regicides, transpired before the commencement of the correspondence, and Marvell makes no allusion to either. Perhaps he could not have done so without committing both himself and his correspondents. Of ecclesiastical matters he says but little, though he speaks with approbation of that very good bill for erecting and augmenting vicarages out of all impropriations belonging to archbishops, bishops, deans and chapters, or any other ecclesiastical person or corporation, to £80 per annum, where the impropriation amounts to £120, and where less, to one moiety of the profits of such impropriations.' He casually mentions, once or twice, the king's declaration in religious matters, which it was proposed to pass into a law; but the bill to that effect was lost by 183 against 157. This declaration was intended to satisfy the Presbyterians; and would, in fact, had it been carried into effect, have grafted the Presbyterian system on Episcopacy, and reduced the hierarchal power to little more than an honourable presidency. "On the rejection of this measure, Marvell observes, so there's an end of that bill; and for those excellent things therein, we must henceforth rely only on his majesty's goodness, who, I must needs say, hath been more ready to give, than we to receive.' In all his earlier letters he speaks respectfully and favourably of Charles and the royal family, and seems to have entertained hopes of a just and equal government, a true and comprehensive amnesty of all past offences between prince and subject, between all sects and parties, between each man and his neighbour. "In speaking of the measures then on foot for establishing the militia, he advises rather to trust to his majesty's goodness,' than to 'confirm a perpetual and exorbitant power by law.' This sentiment not only shows that the patriot was not then ill-affected towards the restored line, but proves him to have been a truly wise and liberal statesman; unlike too many champions of liberty, who, in their dread of prerogative, have unwarily strengthened the tyranny of law, a thing without bowels or conscience, and overlooks the chronic diseases of custom, which slowly but surely reduce the body politic to a condition of impotence and dotage." He is reported to have spoken but seldom in the house, but to have possessed great personal influence over the members of the commons, and also with the peers. His exertions in favour of religious liberty, and against the excise, were particularly noted. In 1663 he retired from his parliamentary duties, and accompanied Lord Carlisle as secretary to Russia; but he appears to have accepted this appointment rather from private friendship than on public grounds. He continued there and in Sweden and Denmark, nearly two years. On the 15th of October, 1665, we find him attending the parliament at Oxford. From this period to October 1674, Marvell's correspondence gives a regular account of the proceedings of the two houses; and the prorogation of parliament, in November, 1675, terminates his parliamentary labours. We have no room here to particularize, or quote the various prose works in which he boldly advocated the public cause. He was proof against every assault on his invincible public integrity. Neither the personal compliments of the king himself who delighted in the wit of his society, nor the golden offers of Charles's treasurer, Danby, who, with difficulty found him in his " elevated retreat, in the second floor of a court in the Strand," the very day he borrowed a guinea,-could daunt his courage or stay his opposition to the government, much less tempt him to prostitute his pen in its behalf. His personal satire against the king himself, his tracts against popery and the ministry, his desperate literary battles with Parker and others, repeatedly endangered his life. But it was all to no purpose on the part of his enemies; he was a rock amidst the foaming ocean; his Roman virtue was incorruptible. He at last died suddenly on the 29th of July, 1678, while attending a public meeting in the town-hall of Hull-it is supposed by poison, as his health had been remarkably good previous to his seizure. Thus, probably, was the threat actually fulfilled,-"If thou darest to print or publish any lie or libel against Dr Parker, by the eternal God I will cut thy throat !" "But whether fate or art untwined thy thread |