PREFACE

I DESIRE to express my indebtedness to the following editions of Marvell's Works:

(1) The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq., Poetical,
Controversial, and Political: containing many
Original Letters, Poems, and Tracts never
before printed, with a New Life. By Cap-
tain Edward Thompson. In three volumes.
London, 1776.

(2) The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of
Andrew Marvell, M.P. Edited with Memorial-
Introduction and Notes by the Rev. Alex-
ander B. Grosart. In four volumes. 1872.
(In the Fuller Worthies Library.)

(3) Poems and Satires of Andrew Marvell, sometime
Member of Parliament for Hull. Edited by
G. A. Aitken. Two volumes. Lawrence and
Bullen, 1892.

Reprinted Routledge, 1905.

Mr. C. H. Firth's Life of Marvell in the thirty-sixth volume of The Dictionary of National Biography has, I am sure, preserved me from some, and possibly from many, blunders.

3 NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN,

June 3, 1905.

A. B.

A CIVIL SERVANT IN THE TIME OF THE COMMONWEALTH 48

ANDREW

MARVELL

CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

THE name of Andrew Marvell ever sounds sweet, and always has, to use words of Charles Lamb's, a fine relish to the ear. (As the author of poetry of exquisite quality, where for the last time may be heard the priceless note of the Elizabethan lyricist, whilst at the same moment utterance is being given to thoughts and feelings which reach far forward to Wordsworth and Shelley, Marvell can never be forgotten in his native England.)

Lines of Marvell's poetry have secured the final honours, and incurred the peril, of becoming "familiar quotations" ready for use on a great variety of occasion. We may, perhaps, have been bidden once or twice too often to remember how the Royal actor

"Nothing common did, or mean,

Upon that memorable scene,"

or have been assured to our surprise by some selfsatisfied worldling how he always hears at his back,

"Time's winged chariot hurrying near."

A true poet can, however, never be defiled by the rough usage of the populace.

As a politician Marvell lives in the old-fashioned