ANDREW MARVELL. Or Andrew Marvell, a patriot of the old Roman build, and a Poet of no vulgar strain, it is to be regretted that our notices are less ample and continuous than his personal merit deserves, or his exalted walk of public action would induce us to expect. His name, indeed, is generally known-a few anecdotes of his honesty are daily repeated—and a single copy of verses, no adequate sample of his poetic powers, keeping its station in the vestibule of Paradise Lost, records him as the friend and admirer of Milton. But the detail of his daily life-the simple background of the stirring picture-the intermediate transactions which should make up the unity and totality of his story — might indeed be easily supplied by imagination, but cannot be derived from document or tradition. The mind of Marvell, like the street and the wall of Jerusalem, was built in troublous times. From his youth upwards, he was inured to peril and privation; and, though he does not appear to have been personally engaged in civil conflict, he could not escape the tyrannous trials of those 'evil days '—reproach and wicked solicitation, and sundering of dearest ties, by violent death, and exile, and crueller estrangement. Yet if his heart was often wounded, it was never hardened. He ever retained and cherished his love of the gentle, the beautiful, and the imaginative. His virtue, firm and uncompromising, was never savage; nor did his full reliance on his own principles make him blind to perceive, or slow to acknowledge, whatever goodness appeared in men of other faith and allegiance. He was a wit and poet, and as these qualities made him no worse a patriot or christian, so they probably made him a more amiable man. The father of Marvell, who bore both his names, was a native of Cambridge, and M. A. of Emanuel College, a recent foundation, which was strongly embued with puritanism. Having taken orders, he was elected master of the Grammar School at Hull, and in 1624 became lecturer of Trinity Church, in that town, where his son Andrew was born, Nov. 15, 1620. The elder Marvell was a learned and pious man, who seemed to retain the principles of his college, and possessed a portion of that shrewd humour for which his son was so conspicuous; for Echard, in his history, calls him "the facetious Calvinistical minister of Hull." As Calvinism was then identified with the popular cause, he doubtless instilled into young Andrew's mind the early love of that liberty, to the support of which he devoted his life and talents. Of Andrew's school days little is recorded: at fifteen, an age which would now be esteemed at least two years too soon, he was admitted of Trinity College, Cambridge. His academical progress was proportionate to the growing powers and native energy of his mind. But error, which youth can never wholly escape, peculiarly besets the nonage of an active intellect. And none are more obnoxious to the attacks of the wicked spirits "that lie like truth," than the young and ardent, to whom Truth is a passion, and a Deity. The Jesuits, the subtlest spawn of the subtle serpent, who were then compassing sea and land to make one proselyte, and like all proselytists, religious and political, directed their machinations especially against boys and women, had stolen into the Universities. Young Marvell was a tempting prize; and their plausible equivocations so far prevailed over his inexperience, as to seduce him to London. It was one of the devices of Jesuitism, which held all means indifferent or laudable whereby the power of their church was to be sustained and enlarged, to pretend a zeal for civil liberty, to speak lightly of the jus divinum, and to justify resistance. Probably by these means they ingratiated themselves with Marvell, who, in his innocence, might not perceive, that not popular freedom, but the despotism of an order was to be substituted for regal prerogative. Moreover, the Catholics, and the Catholic priesthood in particular, were at that time the objects of mob fury and legal pillage; sometimes timidly protected, and sometimes nearly given up by the Court. It is not the least evil of intolerance, that it often sets the martyr's crown on the brow of the bigot and the traitor. But all the Jesuits' craft could not sophisticate the filial piety of young Marvell; though their principles on that head were as lax as those of the Pharisees. He was, therefore, quickly subdued by the remonstrances of his excellent father, who pursued him to the metropolis, and restored him to sanity and his studies. On the 13th of December, 1638, as appears by his own hand-writing, he was again received at Trinity College, and seems to have steadily applied himself to the pursuit of learning till 1640, when the loss of his revered parent again interrupted his academical course. The circumstances of the elder Marvell's death are somewhat variously related ; but by all accounts he fell a sacrifice to his honour, and sense of duty. The less extraordinary tradition is as follows:-On the banks of the Humber, opposite Kingston, lived a lady, the only daughter, and main earthly stay of her mother, whose excellent qualities of heart and mind recommended her to the good pastor's especial regard. To perpetuate the friendship of the families, he requested her to become god-mother to one of his children, a relation then supposed to impose great and lasting duties. Her mother, who could scarcely live but in the company of her child, reluctantly consented. The lady came to Hull accordingly, the ceremony was performed, and she became impatient to return to her parent. Coming to the water side, she found the river so rough, and the weather so unpromising, that the watermen earnestly dissuaded her from attempting the passage. But no peril nor persuasion could prevail on her to violate the promise she had made to her mother. The worthy minister, honouring her virtuous resolution, though anticipating a fatal result, resolved to share the danger of which he had been the unwitting cause,-took charge of the duteous female, embarked along with her, and with her perished in the waters. The other relation is so little in accordance with modern theories, that some apology may be deemed necessary for introducing it into our memoir. But wonderful tales, if not absolutely true, nevertheless are important documents, if they ever were generally believed; for they contribute to the history of opinion. Besides, "there are more things between heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy." According to this account, Mr. Marvell's apprehension arose, not from the warning of watermen, nor from the threatenings of the sky, but from that prophetic presentiment, that second sight of dissolution, which, like the shadow on the dial, points darkly at the hour of departure. The morning was clear, the breeze fair, and the company gay; when, stepping into the boat, the reverend man exclaimed-" Ho for Heaven!" so saying, he threw his staff ashore, and left it to Providence to fulfil its awful warning. Of course we ask nobody to believe this unless he chooses, but we should as readily believe it, upon sufficient evidence, as any event in history. So many are the similar cases on record, that he who would reject them all, must be a person of indefatigable incredulity. The prophetic warnings have occurred to young and old, kings and rustics, saints and sinners; to Bentley, the orthodox; to Oliver Cromwell, the fanatic; to Littleton, the rake; to Nelson, the hero; and to Alexander Stephens, the buffoon. Thus was young Marvell bereft of his natural guardian in his twentieth year, and left to find his way in the troubled world, to decide between warring opinions, and choose amid conflicting parties, unassisted by that voice of authority to which he would have paid most willing deference.* The aged lady, with whose daughter the venerable man had dared to die, sent for his son from Cambridge, acted towards him as a mother, and at her decease bequeathed him her whole property. The transactions which immediately succeeded this event, are not on record; but it would seem that Marvell, to whose ardent and liberal mind neither college discipline nor collegiate opinions were likely to be agreeable, became negligent of academic exercises when no longer restrained by parental care; and, in 1641, he, with four other youths, among whom was Maye, the parliamentary historian and translator and continuator of Lucan, were conditionally dismissed from Trinity College.† Marvell probably never made the required submission, or returned to Cambridge, for soon after we find him on his travels in Italy. That he was at Rome, appears from his poem, called "Flecnoe an English Priest," which is supposed to have suggested to Dryden his famous satire of Mc Flecnoe, wherein he avenged himself on his old enemy Shadwell, whose politics had gained the Laureateship of which Dryden was deprived at the revolution. Shadwell was fair game; but Flecnoe seems to have been innocuously dull. At Rome, it is sup * Marvell thus speaks of his father, in 'The Rehearsal Transprosed : '—“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." + In the Conclusion-Book of Trinity College, September 24th, 1641, appears the following entry:-"It is agreed by the Masters and Seniors, that Mr. Carter, Dominus Wakefield, Dominus Marvell, Dominus Waterhouse, and Dominus Maye, in regard that some of them are reported to be married, and the others look not after their dayes nor acts, shall receive no more benefit of the college, and shall be out of their places, unless they show just cause to the college for the contrary, in three months."-N. B. A jack tar would probably call the Conclusion-Book the college Log. The Courtly Laurel has never, in public opinion, recovered from the contamination of Shadwell's brows. Tom was the father of a dynasty of Laureate Dunces, among whom it is grievous to think that such names as Warton and Southey should be numbered; to wit, Tate, Rowe, Eusden, Cibber, Whitehead and Pie, What though the Courtly Laurel now Adorn a true poetic brow, Immortal Bard, as well might'st thou Write verses to a hugé Dutch Frau, As big as all three Graces, As well, nay better far by half, Make hymns to Jeroboam's calf, Or write in sand an epitaph, O'er the drown'd world of Mynheer Pfaff, posed, 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 atchievement, 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? Whether Marvell ever went the full length of Milton's opinions in Church and State, is not very evident; probably not, for he seems to have been a much more cautious man, and was too young to take any decided part in the civil contest, which by suspending the regal power, made its resumption the As waste thy precious Autograph TOM BROWN THE THIRD. Mynheer Pfaff is a famous geologist, and a Neptunian. Shadwell, though accused by Dryden of "never deviating into sense," was a dramatist of some talent, not wholly valueless, for his plays record the state of manners among certain classes with vivid fidelity, if indeed the records of vice are worth preserving at all. He was the first Englishman who introduced Don Juan upon the stage, and his Tragedy of the Libertine is very good in its own bad kind. His Comedies are resolutely and offensively coarse, and scarcely deserve the trouble of purgation. As for Flecnoe, appears that he was not an English priest, but a native of the Emerald Isle. Hence Pope : "High on a gorgeous seat that far outshone Henley's Gilt-tub-or Flecnoe's Irish throne." DUNCIAD, BOOK 2d. Flecnoe having laid aside, (as himself expressed it,) "the mechanic part of priesthood, wrote only to avoid idleness, and published to avoid the imputation of it." Mr. Southey, whose laudable zeal for obscure merit extends both to the dead and to the living, and who seems to entertain a compassion, almost melting into love, for innocent dulness, has dedicated some pages of his Omniana, (a miscellany of wonderful learning, and delightful vivacity,) to the vindicationR this poor author, and gives some extracts from his poems, which we are afraid, will not plead potently against Mc Flecnoe. Southey ascribes Dryden's antipathy to Flecnoe's just invectives against the obscenity of the stage, for which wickedness Dryden was, if not more infamous, more notorious, than his dull contemporaries. But it is just as likely, that Flecnoe's name, itself a rememberable sound, and apt for composition, had by the attacks of a series of satirists, become, like that of Bavius, of Quarles, of Sternhold, and of Blackmore, a synonyme for extravagant flatness. It is hard for a man to have his name thus memorized, when every thing else about him is forgotten. |