Hav find others far superior to them, if we could | drinks healths in scalding brimstone, afford space for long citations. scranches the glasses for his dessert, and Ironically bewailing the calamitous effects draws his breath through glowing tobaccoof printing, our author exclaims-'O Print-pipes, he could not show more flame than he ing! how hast thou disturbed the peace of always does upon that subject.' Parker, in mankind? Lead, when moulded into bul- a passage of unequalled absurdity, having relets, is not so mortal as when founded into presented Geneva as on the south side of the letters. There was a mistake, sure, in the lake Leman, Marvell ingeniously represents story of Cadmus; and the serpent's teeth the blunder as the subject of discussion in a which he sowed, were nothing else but the private company, where various droll soluletters which he invented.' Parker having tions are proposed, and where he, with exdeclared, in relation to some object of his quisite irony, pretends to take Parker's part. scurrility, that he had written, not to impair I,' says Marvell, that was still on the his esteem,' but 'to correct his scribbling doubtful and excusing part, said, that to give humor;' Marvell says 'Our author is as the right situation of a town, it was necescourteous as lightning; and can melt the sary first to know in what position the gensword without ever hurting the scabbard.' tleman's head then was when he made his After alleging that his opponent often has a observation, and that might cause a great byplay of malignity even when bestowing diversity-as much as this came to.' commendations, he remarks- The author's ing charged his adversary with needlessly end was only railing. He could never have obtruding upon the world some petty matters induced himself to praise one man but in which concerned only himself, from an exorder to rail on another. He never oils his aggerated idea of his own importance, Marhone but that he may whet his razor, and vell drolly says When a man is once posthat not to shave, but to cut men's throats.' sessed with this fanatic kind of spirit, he On Parker's absurd and bombastic exagger-imagines if a shoulder do but itch that the ation of the merits and achievements of world has galled it with leaning on it so long, Bishop Bramhall, Marvell wittily says- Any and therefore he wisely shrugs to remove the worthy man may pass through the world un- globe to the other. If he chance but to questioned and safe, with a moderate recom- sneeze, he salutes himself, and courteously mendation; but when he is thus set off and prays that the foundations of the earth be not bedaubed with rhetoric, and embroidered so shaken. And even so the author of the thick that you cannot discern the ground, it Ecclesiastical Polity, ever since he crept up awakens naturally (and not altogether un- to be but the weathercock of a steeple, tremjustly) interest, curiosity, and envy. For all bles and creaks at every puff of wind that men pretend a share in reputation, and love blows him about, as if the Church of Engnot to see it engrossed and monopolized; land were falling, and the state tottered.' and are subject to inquire (as of great estates After ludicrously describing the effect of the suddenly got) whether he came by all this first part of the Rehearsal' in exacerbating honestly, or of what credit the person is that all his opponent's evil passions, he remarks tells the story? And the same hath hap-He seems not so fit at present for the pened as to this bishop. . Men seeing archdeacon's seat, as to take his place below him furbished up in so martial accoutre- in the church amongst the energumeni.' ments, like another Odo, Bishop of Baieux, Parker had charged him with a sort of plaand having never before heard of his prowess, giarism for having quoted so many passages begin to reflect what giants he defeated, and out of his book. On this Marvell observes what damsels he rescued. . . After all'It has, I believe, indeed angered him, as our author's bombast, when we have searched it has been no small trouble to me; but how all over, we find ourselves bilked in our ex- can I help it? I wish he would be pleased pectation; and he hath created the Bishop, to teach me an art (for, if any man in the like a St. Christopher in the Popish churches, world, he hath it) to answer a book without as big as ten porters, and yet only employed turning over the leaves, or without citing to sweat under the burden of an infant.' Of the paroxysms of rage with which Parker refers to one of his adversaries, whom he distinguishes by his initials, Marvell says-' As oft as he does but name those two first letters, he is, like the island of Fayal, on fire in threescore and ten places;' and affirins, 'that if he were of that fellow's diet here about town, that epicurizes on burning coals, passages. In the mean time, if to transcribe so much out of him must render a man, as he therefore styles me, a "scandalous plagiary," I must plead guilty; but by the same law, whoever shall either be witness or prosecutor in behalf of the King, for treasonable words, may be indicted for a highwayman.' Parker having viewed some extravaganza of Marvell's riotous wit as if worthy of serious com splendid illustration nothing but the ambuscade of a fallacy, and strong emotion as tantamount to a confession of unsound judgment. As Archbishop Whately has well remarked, such men having been warned that 'ridicule is not the test of truth,' and that ' wisdom and wit are not the same thing, distrust every thing that can possibly be regarded as witty; not having judgment to perceive the combination, when it occurs, of wit and sound reasoning. The ivy wreath completely conceals from their view the point of the thyrsus.' ment, the latter says- Whereas I only threw | cessarily be a trifling one. For similar reasons, it out like an empty cask to amuse him, they look with sage suspicion on every signal knowing that I had a whale to deal with, display, either of fancy or passion; think a and lest he should overset me;-he runs away with it as a very serious business, and so moyles himself with tumbling and tossing it, that he is in danger of melting his spermaceti. A cork, I see, will serve without a hook; and, instead of a harping-iron, this grave and ponderous creature may, like eels, be taken and pulled up only with bobbing' After exposing in a strain of uncommon eloquence the wickedness and folly of suspending the peace of the nation on so frivolous a matter as ' ceremonial,' he says-- For a prince to adventure all upon such a cause, is like Duke Charles of Burgundy, who fought three battles for an imposition upon sheep-skins;' and 'for a clergyman to offer at persecution upon this ceremonial account, is (as is related of one of the Popes) to justify his indignation for his peacock, by the example of God's anger for eating the forbidden fruit.' He justifies his severity towards Parker in a very ludicrous way-'No man needs letters of marque against one that is an open pirate of other men's credit. I remember within our own time one Simons, who robbed always on the bricolle-that is to say, never interrupted the passengers, but still set upon the thieves themselves, after, like Sir John Falstaff, they were gorged with a booty; and by this way-so ingenious that it was scarce criminal-he lived secure and unmolested all his days, with the reputation of a judge rather than of a highwayman.' The sentences we have cited are all taken from the 'Rehearsal.' We had marked many more from his 'Divine in Mode,' and other writings, but have no space for them. The fact is, that all Marvell's endowments were on a large scale, though his wit greatly predominated. His judgment was remarkably clear and sound, his logic by no means contemptible, his sagacity in practical matters great, his talents for business apparently of the first order, and his industry indefatigable. His imagination, though principally employed in ministering to his wit, would, if sufficiently cultivated, have made him a poet considerably above mediocrity; though chiefly alive to the ludicrous, he was by no means insensible to the beautiful. We cannot, indeed, bestow all the praise on his poems which some of his critics have assigned them. They are very plentifully disfigured by the conceits and quaintnesses of the age, and as frequently want grace of expression and harmony of numbers. Of the compositions which Captain Thompson's indiscriminate admiration would fain have affiliated to his muse, the two best are proved-one not to be his, and the other of doubtful origin. The former, beginning'When Israel, freed from Pharaoh's hand,' But he who supposes Marvell to have been is a well known composition of Dr. Watts; nothing but a wit, simply on account of the the other, the ballad of 'William and Margapredominance of that quality, will do him in- ret,' is of dubious authorship. Though probjustice. It is the common lot of such men, ably of earlier date than the age of Mallet, in whom some one faculty is found on a great its reputed author-the reasons which Capscale, to fail of part of the admiration due to tain Thompson gives for assigning it to Marother endowments; possessed in more moder- vell, are altogether unsatisfactory. Still, ate degree, indeed, but still in a degree far there are unquestionably many of his genufrom ordinary. We are subject to the same ine poems which indicate a rich, though illillusion in gazing on mountain scenery. Fix- cultivated fancy; and in some few stanzas ing our eye on some solitary peak, which there is no little grace of expression. The towers far above the rest, the groups of sur- little piece on the Pilgrim Fathers, entitled rounding hills look positively diminutive, the Emigrants,' the Fanciful ‘Dialogue bethough they may, in fact, be all of great mag-tween Body and Soul,' the 'Dialogue between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure,' and the Coronet,' all contain lines of much elegance and sweetness. It is in his satirical poems that, as might be expected from the character of his mind, his fancy appears most vigorous; though these are largely disfigured by the characteristic defects of the age, and many, it must be confessed, are entirely with- his works bear ample evidence of his wide and out merit. With two or three lines from his miscellaneous reading. He appears to have ludicrous satire on Holland, we cannot re-been well versed in most branches of literafrain from amusing the reader. Some of the ture, though he makes no pedantic display of strokes of humor are irresistibly ridiculous: 'Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, By English pilots when they heav'd the lead; Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, With such a mind as we have ascribed to him—and we think his works fully justify what we have said—with such aptitudes for business, soundness of judgment, powers of reasoning, and readiness of sarcasm, one might have anticipated that he would have taken some rank as an orator. Nature, it is certain, had bestowed upon him some of the most important intellectual endowments of one. It is true, indeed, that with his principles and opinions he would have found himself strangely embarrassed in addressing any parliament in the days of Charles II., and stood but a moderate chance of obtaining a candid hearing. But we have no proof that he ever made the trial. His parliamentary career in this respect resembled that of a much greater man-Addison, who, with wit even superior to his own, and with much more elegance, if not more strength of mind, failed signally as a speaker. Marvell's learning must have been very extensive. His education was superior and as we have seen from the testimony of Milton, his industry had made him master, during his long sojourn on the continent, of several continental languages. It is certain, also, that he continued to be a student all his days: erudition, and in this respect is favorably distinguished from many of his contemporaries; yet he cites his authors with the familiarity of a thorough scholar. In the department of history he appears to have been particularly well read; and derives his witty illustrations from such remote and obscure sources, that Parker did not hesitate to avow his belief that he had sometimes drawn on his invention for them. In his Reply, Marvell justifies himself in all the alleged instances, and takes occasion to show that his opponent's learning is as hollow as all his other pretensions. The style of Marvell is very unequal. Though often rude and unpolished, it abounds in negligent felicities, presents us with frequent specimens of vigorous idiomatic English, and now and then attains no mean degree of elegance. It bears the stamp of the revolution which was then passing on the language; it is a medium between the involved and periodic structure so common during the former half of the century, and which is ill adapted to a language possessing so few inflections as ours, and that simplicity and harmony which were not fully attained till the age of Addison. There is a very large infusion of short sentences, and the structure in general is as unlike that of his great colleague's prose as can be imagined. Many of Marvell's pages flow with so much ease and grace, as to be not unworthy of a later period. To that great revolution in style to which we have just alluded, he must in no slight degree have contributed; for little as his works are known or read now, the most noted of them were once universally popular, and perused with pleasure, as Burnet testifies, by every body, from the king to the tradesman.' Numerous examples show, that it is almost impossible for even the rarest talents to confer permanent popularity on books which turn on topics of temporary interest, however absorbing at the time. If Pascal's transcendant genius has been unable to rescue even the Lettres Provinciales from partial oblivion, it is not to be expected that Marvell should have done more for the Rehearsal Transprosed. Swift, it is true, about half a century later, has been pleased, while expressing this opinion, to make an exception in favor of Marvell. There is indeed,' says he, an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago.' But this statement is scarcely applicable now. It is true that the 'Rehearsal' is occasionally read by the curious; but it is by the resolutely curious alone. Yet assuredly he has not lived in vain who has successfully endeavored to abate the nuisances of his own time, or to put down some insolent abettor of vice and corruption. Nor is it possible in a world like this, in which there is such continuity of causes and effects -where one generation transmits its good and its evil to the next, and the consequences of each revolution in principles, opinions, or tastes, are propagated along the whole line of humanity-to estimate either the degree or perpetuity of the benefits conferred by the complete success of works even of transient interest. By modifying the age in which he lives, a man may indirectly modify the character of many generations to come. His works may be forgotten while their effects survive. of that; it may be for the sake of those whom he maligns and injures. When the exorcist takes Satan in hand, it is not because he is an Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the devil,' but in pity to the supposed victims of his malignity. It is much the same when a man like Marvell undertakes to satirize a man like Parker. Even such a man may be abashed and confounded, though he cannot be reclaimed; and if so, the satirist gains his object and society gets the benefit. Experience fully shows us that there are many men who will be restrained by ridicule long after they are lost to virtue, and that they are accessible to shame when they are utterly inaccessible to argument. This was just the good that Marvell effected. He made Parker, it is true, more furious; but he diverted, if he could not turn the tide of popular feeling, and thus prevented mischief. Parker, and others like him, were doing all they could to inflame angry Mar to unmask the Jesuits and damage their cause by his 'Provincial Letters,' than had been effected by all the efforts of all their other opponents put together. Marvell's history affords a signal instance of the benefits which may be derived from well-passions, to revive the most extravagant predirected satire. There are cases in which it tensions of tyranny, and to preach up another may be a valuable auxiliary to decency, vir- crusade against the Nonconformists. tue, and religion, where argument and per- vell's books were a conductor to the dangersuasion both fail. Many, indeed, doubt both ous fluid; if there was any explosion at all, the legitimacy of the weapon itself, and the it was an explosion of merriment. He had success with which it can be employed. But all the laughers on his side,' says Burnet. In facts are against them. To hope that it can Charles II.'s reign, there were few who beever supply the place of religion as a radical longed to any other class; and then, as now, cure for vice or immortality, would be chi- men found it impossible to laugh and be merical; but there are many pernicious cus- angry at the same time. It is our firm betoms, violations of propriety, ridiculous, yet lief, that Marvell did more to humble Parker, tolerated, follies, which religion can scarcely and neutralize the influence of his party, by touch without endangering her dignity. To the Rehearsal Transprosed,' than he could assail them is one of the most legitimate have done by writing half a dozen folios of offices of satire; nor have we the slightest polemical divinity; just as Pascal did more doubt that the Spectator' did more to abate many of the prevailing follies and pernicious customs of the age, than a thousand homilies. This, however, may be admitted, and yet it may be said that it does not reach the case of But admirable as were Marvell's intellectuMarvell and Parker. Society, it may be ar- al endowments, it is his moral worth, after gued, will bear the exposure of its own evils all, which constitutes his principal claim on with great equanimity, and perhaps profit by the admiration of posterity, and which sheds it-no individual being pointed at, and each a redeeming lustre on one of the darkest being left to digest his own lesson, under pages of the English annals. Inflexible inthe pleasant conviction that it was designed tegrity was the basis of it-integrity by which principally for his neighbors. As corpora- he has not unworthily earned the glorious tions will perpetrate actions of which each in-name of the British Aristides.' dividual member would be ashamed; so cor- ents and acquirements which might have jus porations will listen to charges which every tified him in aspiring to almost any office, if individual member would regard as insults. he could have disburdened himself of his conBut no man, it is said, is likely to be reclaim-science; with wit which, in that frivolous ed from error or vice by being made the object of merciless ridicule. All this we believe most true. But then it is not to be forgotten, that it may not be the satirist's object to reclaim the individual—he may have little hope With tal age, was a surer passport to fame than any amount either of intellect or virtue, and which, as we have seen, mollified even the monarch himself in spite of his prejudices; Marvell preferred poverty and independence to riches and servility. He had learned the lesson, practised by few in that age, of being content with little-so that he preserved his conscience. He could be poor, but he could not be mean; could starve, but could not cringe. By economizing in the articles of pride and ambition, he could afford to keep what their votaries were compelled to retrench, the necessaries, or rather the luxuries, of integrity and a good conscience. Neither menaces, nor caresses, nor bribes, nor poverty, nor distress, could induce him to abandon his integrity; or even to take an office in which it might be tempted or endangered. He only who has arrived at this pitch of magnanimity, has an adequate security for his public virtue. He who cannot subsist upon a little; who has not learned to be content with such things as he has, and even to be content with almost nothing; who has not learned to familiarize his thoughts to poverty, much more readily than he can familiarize them to dishonor, is not yet free from peril. Andrew Marvell, as his whole course proves, had done this. But we shall not do full justice to his public integrity, if we do not bear in mind the corruption of the age in which he lived; the manifold apostasies amidst which he retained his conscience; and the effect which such wide-spread profligacy must have had in making thousands almost skeptical as to whether there were such a thing as public virtue at all. Such a relaxation in the code of speculative morals, is one of the worst results of general profligacy in practice. But Andrew Marvell was not to be deluded; and amidst corruption perfectly unparalleled, he still continued untainted. We are accustomed to hear of his virtue as a truly Roman virtue, and so it was; but it was something more. Only the best pages of Roman history can supply a parallel there was no Cincinnatus in those ages of her shame which alone can be compared with those of Charles II. It were easier to find a Cincinnatus during the era of the English Commonwealth, than an Andrew Marvell in the age of Commodus. The integrity and patriotism which distinguished him in his relations to the Court, also marked all his public conduct. He was evidently most scrupulously honest and faithful in the discharge of his duty to his constituents; and, as we have seen, almost punctilious in guarding against any thing which could tarnish his fair fame, or defile his conscience. On reviewing the whole of his public conduct, we may well say that he attained his wish, expressed in the lines which he has written in imitation of a chorus in the Thyestes of Seneca : 'Climb at Court for me that will- Thus, when without noise, unknown, An old honest countryman.' He seems to have been as amiable in his private as he was estimable in his public character. So far as any documents throw light upon the subject, the same integrity appears to have belonged to both. He is described as of a very reserved and quiet temper; but, like Addison, (whom in this respect as in some few others he resembled,) exceedingly facetious and lively amongst his intimate friends. His disinterested championship of others, is no less a proof of his sympathy with the oppressed than of his abhorrence of oppression; and many pleasing traits of amiability occur in his private correspondence, as well as in his writings. On the whole, we think that Marvell's epitaph, strong as the terms of panegyric are, records little more than the truth; and that it was not in the vain spirit of boasting, but in the honest consciousness of virtue and integrity, that he himself concludes a letter to one of his correspondents in the |