ve had common friends at or belonging to Cambridge. Fairfax may have made the two men kno

s always to have liked Bradshaw, who was not generally popular even on his own side, and in the Defensio Secunda pro populo Anglicano extols his character and attainments in sonorous latinity. Bradshaw had become in February 1649 the first President of the new Council of State, which, after the disappearance of the king and the abolition of the House of Lords, t

rried an Englishwoman. He retired in bad health at this time, and Milton was appointed to his place in 1649. When, later on, the sight of the most illustrious of

d made his home at Eton, is dated F

lf, if there be any employment for him. His father was the Minister of Hull, and he hath spent four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaining of these four languages, besides he is a scholer and well-read in the Latin and Greek authors, and no doubt of an approved conversation, for he now comes lately out of the house of the Lord Fairfax, who was Generall, where he was intrusted to give some instructions in the languages to the Lady, his daughter. If upon the death of Mr. Weckerlyn the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the performance of my place (though for my part I find no

Mil

1, 1652

he Honourable the

hurloe, the very handy Secretary of the Council, had for the time assumed Weckherlin's duties, and obtained on that score an addition to his salary. No actual vacancy, therefore, occurred

scertained. His friend, John Oxenbridge, who had been driven f

remote Berm

idge's sister, was known to Marvell, and may have introduced him to his brother-in-law. At all events Marvell frequently visited Eton, where, however, he had the good

is acquaintance and conversed awhile with the living remains of on

curious commentary upon the confused times of the Civil War and Restoration that perhaps never before, and seldom, if ever, since, has England conta

tter which accompanied it. Nobody is now left to think much of Bradshaw, but in 1654 he was an excellent representative of the class Carlyle was fond of describing as the alors célèbre. Prompted by this desire, Milton must have written to Marvell hinting, as he well knew how to do, his surprise at the curtness of his friend's former communication, and Marvell's reply to this letter has come down to us. It is Marvell's glory that long before Paradise Lost he recognised the essential greatness of the blind secretary, and his letter is a fine example of the mode of humouring a great man. Be it remembered, as we read, that this letter was n

hile I was there, because he might suspect that I, delivering it just upon my departure, might have brought in it some second proposition like to that which you had before made to him by your Letter to my advantage. However, I assure myself that he has since read it, and you, that he did then witnesse all respecte to your person, and as much satisfaction concerninge your work as could be expected from so cursory a review and so sudden an account as he could then have of it from me. Mr. Oxenbridge, at his returne from London, will, I know, give you thanks for his book, as I do with all acknowledgement and humility for that you have sent me. I shall now studie it even to the getting of it by heart; esteeming it, according to my poore judgment (which yet I wish it were so right in all things else), as

w Mar

June 2

or my most ho

n, Esquire

Forrain

use in Pe

mins

lip Meadows, who was sent on a mission to Lisbon, Marvell was chosen by the Lord-Protector to be tutor at Eton to Cromwell's ward, Mr. Dutton, a

tion thereof: I shall only say, that I shall strive according to my best understanding (that is, according to those rules your Lordship hath given me) to increase whatsoever talent he may have already. Truly, he is of gentle and waxen disposition; and God be praised, I cannot say he hath brought with him any evil impression; and I shall hope to set nothing into his spirit but what may be of a good sculpture. He hath in him two things that make youth most easy to be managed,-modesty, which is the bridle to vice; and emulation, which is the spur to virtue. And the care which your Excellence is pleased to take of him is no small encouragement and shall be so represented to him; but, above all, I shall labour to make him sensible of his duty to God; for then we begin to serve faithfully, when we consider He is our master. And in this, both he and I owe infinitely to your Lor

w Mar

, July 2

his most humble servic

an his stormy career as an anonymous political poet and satirist. The Dutch were his first victims, good Protestants t

h dates back to Elizabeth, and to the first stirring in the womb of time of the British navy. This may be readily perceived if we read Dr. John Dee's "P

ng trade, then wholly in the hands of the Dutch; and second, the recognition that England was a sea-em

with twenty thousand handy sailors on board, ready by every 1st of June to sail out of the Maas, the

three score tons and fifty tons; the biggest of them having four and twenty men, some twenty men, and some eighteen or sixteen men apiece. So there cannot be in this fleet of People no less than twenty thousand sailors.... No king upon the earth did ever see such a fleet of his own subjects at any

year at Yarmouth there were three hundred idle men that could get nothing to do, living very poor for lack of employment, which most gladly would have gone to sea in Pinks if there had been any for them to go in.... And this last year the Hollanders did lade 12 sa

avy necessary for our sea-empire be manned otherwise than by a race o

ce of sea, but also would be well practised and trained to great perfection of understanding all manner of fight and service of sea, so

st the enemy, will be fellows for the nonce! and will put more strength to an iron crow at a piece of great ordnance in training of a cannon, or culvining with the direction of the experimented master Gunner, then two or three of the forenamed surfeited sailors. And in distress of wind-grow

ot only fished our water but did the carrying trade of the world. It was no rare sight t

o the king and gave a commercial preference to the Dutch, shipping their produce to all parts of the world exclusively in Dutch bottoms. This was found intolerable, and in October 1651 the Long Parliament, nearing

ported into England in English ships only; and all European goods either in English s

a challen

ships and searching their cargoes for contraband. England asserted this right as against the Dutch, w

land had captured more than a thousand Dutch trading vessels, and brought business to a standstill in Amsterdam-then the great centre of commercial interests. Whe

he famous essay on the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates (first printed in 1612), "that he that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will." Cromwell, though not the creator of

the Government under His Highness the Lord-Protector, he describes foreign princes soundly rat

th one, 'the na

h wars, under

vy while we

ne rase and r

ests, and what

men-what uni

.

e all their

hold the slui

the fountai

took, we capti

have the waters

ve us neither e

ar. As poetry the lines have no great merit; they do not even jingle agreeably-but they are full of the spirit of the time, and breathe forth that

carce deserves t

-scouring of t

earth as was

ots when they

e ocean's slo

cockle and th

ested vomi

Dutch by jus

heir country from the sea is mad

rivet with g

entre their ne

ke a strugglin

ves still bait t

watery Babel

a, than those t

claim the inju

frog o'er their

pose it on l

what's their

uge over th

water play a

mes the burghe

as a meat, bu

perhaps the first of the moderns to rediscover both the rare merits

h his ridicule to at

gmies, who best

ry, he that tr

, the one-eyed

the drowned,

see the rising

irst discern th

know to pump an

ord, and Country

, was a great

el, and be a

uch humour as this may well hav

t"-which served as the actual excuse for

courtesy witne

le navy they t

captives to re

the western

ent rights and l

the English str

weather-beaten

se

describe the discom

navy staggered

laughed itself

s the future, that Cromwell, dreading as he did the House of Orange and the youthful grandson of Charles the First, who at the appointed hour was destined to deal the House of Stuart a far deadlier stroke than Cromwell had been able to do, eith

shame of Charles the Second's sank deep into Marvell's hear

irfax, I doubt not, among the number, who believed that the new Lord-General thought it was high time he should be where Fairfax's "scruple" at last put him. We may be sure Cromwell's character was dissected even more than it was extolled at Nunappleton. The famous Ode is by no means a panegyric, and its true hero is the "Royal actor," whom Cromwell, so the poem suggests, lured to his doom. It is not

o Sidney Sussex College the finest portrait in existence of Oliver Cromwell. Hollis collected material for an edition of Marvell with the aid of Richard Barron, an early editor of Milton's prose works, and of Algernon Sidney's Discourse concerning Government. Barron, however, lost zeal as the task proceeded, and complained justly enough "of a want of anecdotes," and as the printer, the well-known and accomplished Bowyer, doubted the wisdom of the undertaking, it was allowed to

olume, and was printed from it

ppeared-destroyed, so we are led to believe, in a fi

arvell's own handwriting. But, as ill-luck would have it, the volume also contained poems written at a later period and in quite another hand. Among these latter pieces were Addison's verses, The Spacious Firmament on High and When all thy Mercies, O my God; Dr. Watt

r publication, what does the captain do but claim them all, Songs of Zion and sentimental ballad alike, as Marvell's. This of course bro

l's handwriting. I cannot discover where this statement is made, though it is mad

it copied in a book, subsequently destroyed, which contained (among other things) some poems writte

als his character), and of his verse (so much of it as is positively known), wants more evidence to satisfy him that the

this Ode undoubtedly res

e the royal

scaffold

nd the ar

their blo

common di

t memora

h his k

's edge

he gods with

te his hel

d his co

s upon

hould be so nobly sung in an Ode bearing C

Cromwell co

lorious ar

gh advent

is acti

.

through the

es and te

r's head

h his laur

ss to resi

f angry Hea

would sp

the ma

s private ga

eservèd an

his hig

t the b

dustrious v

e great wo

the kin

nother

all have much pith a

e war's and f

ndefati

the last

p the swo

force it h

s of the s

arts that

must it m

one well entitled to criticise, are among the chief characteristics of this noble poem. It is infinitely refreshing, when reading and thinking about Cromwell, to get as far away as possible from the fanatic's scream and the fury of the bigot, whether of the school of Laud or Hobbes. Andrew Marvell knew Oliver Cromwell a

luded with her in 1654, Marvell, though not then attached to the public service, was employe

em Oliver

oties inimicos

ives otia le

Milton, but there is little doubt they are of Marve

represented in this department of State just then, for Cromwell's Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who represented Northamptonshire in Parliament, had taken occasion to introduce his nephew, John Dryden, to the public service, and he was attached to the same office as Andrew Marvell. Poets, like pigeons, have often taken shelter under our public roofs, but Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, all at the same time, form a remarkable constellation. Old Noll, we may

. The gallant sailor died of fever on his way home, and was buried according to his deserts in the Abbey. His body, with that of his master, was by a vote of Parliament, December 4, 1660, taken from the g

t is imperishable, but was composed nearly two centuries after the battle. The wail of Flodden Field still floats over the Border; but Miss Elliot's famous ballad was published in 1765. Even the Spanish Ar

ome vigorous lines, which

s fleet her spac

world, and hast

wind was fair,

acted guilt, an

oad, of which s

tyranny, and r

.

.

the main them

empire, where y

d-their delightful climate and their excell

ds should have t

r leads" and "War turned the t

eets, between both

for both those wo

.

.

sun ne'er gazed

avies there at

ve, or power,

onquer, or there

s the Span

unk, their wealth

where it can

poet con

treasures which

as large, and

port with them

owe her peace

ur conquering a

yed what had dest

r the present

eeds of many

as the last time the Spanish war-cry Santiago, y

s calmly and, despite the disinterment of their great relative, accepted the Restoration gladly and lived to chuckle over the Revolution. The forgetfulness, no less than the vindictiveness, of men is ofte

Phillis, To

uch a m

rthern she

cas' daug

till I some fl

and for t

ou would'st a

u may wait

chosen s

is the on

not then, at

ch a sprig

ar not; at M

bays enoug

oung as we

old he pl

she comes; b

atching th

eyes, I no

mbs we kne

our lambs' o

lovely a

eep new-wa

ite or swe

so looks a

lse than s

e, let's in s

e and them

to that h

united banis

d could for

nymphs on Damon

rdess could

ina's turn

beauties ma

virtues c

le

ng fr

ll

d us with a p

And yet the end, though it was to be sudden, did not at once seem likely to be so. There was time for the poets to tune their lyres. Waller, Dryden, Sprat

ernment of Oliver Cromwell. The representatives of kings, potentates, and powers crowded the aisles, and all was done that pomp and ceremony could do. Marvell, arrayed in the six yards of mourning the Council had voted him on the 7th of September, was, we may be sure, in the Abbey, and it

ne which was written therein in Marvell's own hand entitled "A poem upon the Death o

ady what thos

e glad nor Heav

iefs, calm peace

torms, Richar

remembering in the po

ad: a leaden

eep over thos

ays under the

looks that pierc

ch so majestic

ived of vigour,

all discoloure

her thing, no

y vain! O, De

world! O, tra

greatness in hi

dead, greater th

ered face you

Death, he yet w

lf, if it be not dignified by the person who hath some other qualification, is not to be valued. There is no signet belongs to it, which can be only kept by a Secretary of State, from whom the Latin Secretary always receives orders and prepares no despatches without his direc

al Transprosed.-

tell me nothing about

cts, see Social England Illust

n Wealth." See Social Eng

bid. p

avy Royal." Social Engl

Win Wealth." Social Eng

gland during the Seventeen

's Wit and Humour (

escription of Holland, a

at draws fift

live as in a

.

.

ips, like swarms

all nations'

.

.

e cannibals o

r cousin-germa

des at anchor

do not live

but Holland was a common butt; so

obscurities of expression, which Horace would not have left, will give a truer notion of the kind of greatness

sistance only shared her calamities, and the name of an Englishman was reverenced through Europe, no poet was heard amidst