grateful remembrance of his patriotic services, collected a sum of money for the purpose of erecting a monument to his memory, in the church of St. Giles' in the Fields, London, where he was interred: but the bigotted Rector of the day would not suffer it to be placed within its walls. The epitaph, drawn up on the occasion, is a manly composition, and exhibits a bright example of active and incorruptible patriotism. NEAR THIS PLACE LIETH THE BODY OF ANDREW MARVELL, ESQUIRE, SO IMPROVED BY EDUCATION, STUDY, AND TRAVEL, THAT JOINING THE MOST PECULIAR GRACES OF WITH A SINGULAR PENETRATION AND STRENGTH OF JUDGMENT, AND EXERCISING ALL THESE IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF HIS LIFE, BELOVED BY GOOD MEN, FEARED BY BAD, ADMIRED BY ALL; PARALLELED BY ANY. BUT A TOMBSTONE CAN NEITHER CONTAIN HIS CHARACTER, IT IS ENGRAVED IN THE MINDS OF THIS GENERATION, AND WILL BE ALWAYS LEGIBLE IN HIS INIMITABLE WRITINGS. NEVERTHELESS, HE HAVING SERVED NEAR TWENTY YEARS SUCCESSIVELY AND THAT WITH SUCH WISDOM, DEXTERITY, INTEGRITY, AND COURAGE, AS BECAME THE TOWN OF KINGSTON-UPON-HULL, FROM WHENCE HE WAS CONSTANTLY DEPUTED TO THAT ASSEMBLY, HAVE ERECTED THIS MONUMENT OF THEIR GRIEF, AND GRATITUDE. HE DIED IN THE 58TH YEAR OF HIS AGE, ON THE 16TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1678. Heu fragile humanum genus! heu terrestria vana! It will be seen that our materials afford an insufficient data for an estimate of Marvell's character as a man. We have only to speak of him as a Senator, and as a Poet. As a Senator, his character appears unimpeachable. He was a true representative of his Constituents; not slavishly submitting his wisdom to their will, nor setting his privilege above their interests. How he would have acted, had he been a member of the Long Parliament, which presumed to command the King in the name of the nation, and levied forces against the Monarch, under his own Great Seal, we can only conjecture. The sphere of his duty was far different; for the Commons, on the Restoration, necessarily resumed their pristine character, which was not that of a ruling Committee, but a simple representation of the third Estate. There was then no need of a monarchal, or of an aristocratical party in the lower House, for the monarchy and aristocracy still retained ample powers of their own. A member of Parliament had therefore only one duty to attend to, as a counsellor is only obliged to serve the interests of his clients, leaving to the Judge and Jury the justice of the general question. We are convinced, that a restitution of the tribunitial power, originally vested in the Commons, should be accompanied with the restoration of the just prerogatives of the Peerage, and of the Crown. "Give the King his own again," and the People will get their own too. The system of English society is too complex to be represented by a single assembly. The heart and faith of an Englishman demands a centre for his affectionate allegiance. An upper House, and a King, we must have, till our national nature is changed. But chance and change have made the House of Commons a governing senate, in which the power of King, Lords, and Commons, are merged and confounded in the universal power of the purse. The very people, the aggregate of living, and immortal souls, constantly present themselves in the slavish quality of producers, as the operative sources of the wealth whereby they are to be fed and covered. We will not say that Marvell's times were better, in many respects they were worse; but still we hold that vice and virtue were far more strictly defined; the path of rectitude though more rugged, was more clearly marked, and as the good were more rigidly good, and the bad much more alarmingly evil, there was less perplexity of choice between the two. We know not of a period, before or after, when an uniform opposer of court measures would have deserved the same unabated praise which is due to Andrew Marvell. Of his poetic merits, we would gladly speak at large, but our limits allow not of immoderate quotation, and his works are too little known, and in general too inaccessible, to be referred to with confidence.* It is * His early poems express a fondness for the charms of rural nature, with much delicacy of sentiment; and are full of fancy, after the manner of Cowley, and his disgraceful to English booksellers, (we say not to the English nation,) that they find not a place in our popular collections. The writer of this notice can truly say that he met with them only by accident, and was astonished that they were not familiar as household words. But probably the same causes which retarded the poetic fame of Milton, went nigh to extinguish that of Andrew Marvell. The classical Republicans were few and inefficient. The Puritans would not read poetry. The High-Church Bigots would read nothing but what emanated from their own party. The common-place roystering Royalists were seldom sober enough to read, and the mob-fanatics did not know their letters. Moreover, the mere celebrity of a man, in one respect, sometimes throws a temporary shade over his accomplishments in a different line. Milton had produced Poems in his youth, that alone would place him high among Poets, yet no one remembered that the author of the "Defensis populi Anglicani” had ever written Comus; and Roscoe was perhaps the first to remind the people of England, that Lorenzo di Medici ranks high among the bards of Italy. It is not without effort that we remember that Cæsar's Commentaries were written by the same man who conquerred at Pharsalia. And what reader of Childe Harold thinks of LORD BYRON'S Speech about the Nottingham Framebreakers? Lord John Russell's Tragedies are obscured by the lustre of his Reform Bill, and should Paganini produce another Iliad, it would only be read as the preposterous adventure of a Fiddler. Hence we contemporaries. His great wit was debased indeed, by the coarseness of the time, and his imagination, by its conceits; but he had a true and a fine vein of poetry. On his tomb, as Dr. Symmon's observes, with the strictest adherence to truth, might have been inscribed, "Here lies a truly invaluable man, the scholar, the wit, the firm and zealous friend, the disinterested and incorruptible patriot!" That such a man would not be indifferent to the danger of his illustrious colleague MILTON, after the Restoration, may fairly be presumed. Great interest must, undoubtedly, have been exerted to prevent the exception of that obnoxious name, from the Act of Oblivion. His offence, in defending the execution of Charles I., might, in some points of view, be regarded as greater, even than that of the immediate regicides, who had murthered the King, whilst he had insulted the Office; whose act was confined in its consequences, to a small compass of time, and of place, while his extended to unborn generations, and touched the extremities of Europe. The forgetfulness, or the clemency of the new Sovereign, must necessarily be thrown out of the question; for of the former, his benefactors only were the objects; and, of the latter, those alone whom his prudence, or his want of power, prohibited him to punish. And accordingly, to the interposition of Marvell, Sir Thomas Clarges, and Secretary Morrice, and above all, the grateful Sir Wm. D'Avenant, who had, in 1651, through Milton's mediation, escaped an equal hazard, may be ascribed the preservation of his invaluable life. may fairly conclude that Marvell's fame would have been greater, had it been less; that had he been as insignificant a being as Pomfrett, or Galden, Dr. Johnson might have condescended to rank him among the Poets of Great Britain. MR. GRANGER, in his Biographical History of England,' observes, that "Andrew Marvell was an admirable master of ridicule, which he exerted with great freedom in the cause of liberty and virtue. He never respected vice for being dignified, and dared to attack it wherever he found it, though on the throne itself. There never was a more honest satirist; his pen was always properly directed, and had the same effect, at least upon such as were under no check or restraint from any laws, human or divine. He hated corruption more than he dreaded poverty, and was so far from being venal, that he could not be bribed by the king into silence, when he scarcely knew how to procure a dinner. His satires give us a higher idea of his patriotism and learning, than of his skill as a Poet." MR. JOHN AUBREY, who personally knew Marvell, says that "he was of a middling stature, pretty strong set, roundish faced, cherry cheeked, hazel eyed, brown haired. In his conversation he was modest, and of very few words. He was wont to say, he would not drink high, or freely, with any one with whom he would not trust his life." Mr. Cooke informs us, that " Marvell was very reserved among those he did not well know, but a most delightful and improving companion among friends. He was always very temperate, and of a healthful constitution to the last." CAPTAIN EDWARD THOMPSON, who published his works, says, but upon what authority we know not, that "Marvell was of a dark complexion, with long flowing black hair, black bright eyes, strong featured, his nose not small; but altogether a handsome man, with an expressive countenance: he was about five feet seven inches high, of a strong constitution, and very active; he was of a reserved disposition among strangers, but easy, lively, facetious, and instructive, with his friends." It appears that, in 1765, the late MR. THOMAS HOLLIS had some thoughts of publishing a complete edition of Marvell's Works. The following list was then drawn out for that purpose, by the learned printer Mr. Bowyer :- 1. Flecnoe, an English Priest.-Instructions to a Printer, 1667. 2. A Poem against Lancelot Joseph de Maniban. 3. The Rehearsal Transprosed, 1672. 4. Second Part of the Rehearsal Transprosed, 1672. 5. Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode: being certain Annotations on the Animadversions on the Naked Truth; together with a short historical Essay, concerning general Councils, Creeds, and Impositions, in matters of Religion, by Andreas Rivetus, Jun. 4to. London, 1676. 6. An Account of the Growth of Popery, 1676. 7. Miscellaneous Poems, 1 vol. London: re-printed in 2 vols. 12mo., under the title of "The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq., by Thomas Cooke." 8. A short historical Essay concerning General Councils, 1676. 9. A Letter to Oliver Cromwell, M.S. July 28, 1653. 10. A Letter to Wm. Popple, M.S. July 17th, 1676, &c. Marvell's works, however, have since been published by Captain Thompson, in 1776, in 3 Vols. 4to., who acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Brande Hollis in these words, "The late Mr. Thomas Hollis had once a design of making a collection of the compositions of Marvell, and advertisements were published for that purpose, by the late Andrew Miller, and all the Manuscripts and scarce Tracts then collected have been kindly sent to me." Captain Thompson, in his preface to Marvell's Works, says that the fine Hymn "On Gratitude," No. 453, in the Spectator; also the beautiful Ode commencing with, "The spacious firmament on high," &c. which have been generally attributed to Addison, were the productions of Marvell's pen, as appears from a Manuscript book which Captain Thompson had seen, partly in Marvell's hand-writing. Also the translation of the 114th Psalm, which is given in No. 461 of the Spectator, by Mr. Tickell and generally attributed to him, was composed by Marvell. 66 The celebrated Elegiac ballad of "William and Mary," which was claimed and printed by Mallet in his Poems, Captain Thompson states from the same Manuscript, to have been the composition of Marvell, and written by him in 1670. But Mr. Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes," informs us that "perhaps a more ridiculous and ill-founded charge was never made, than that which Captain Thompson has ventured to exhibit against Addison and Mallet.” * On those conflicting opinions we do not profess to be able to pronounce a judgment. After the death of Marvell, a work was published, said to contain his compositions and posthumous writings, by a woman, who assumed his name, and pretended to be his widow; and to this falsehood she subscribed the name of Mary Marvell; but as it was well known that he was never married, this cheat was soon detected. Marvell had only one sister, named Ann, who married Mr. James Blaydes, by whom he had one daughter, Lydia, who married Robert Nettleton, alderman and * Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century, vol. II. page 450. G |