_Spectator_, Nos. 453, 465, and 461, in 1712, and Mallet's
ballad was first printed in 1724.

Still there these pieces were, in manuscript, in this volume, and as
there were circumstances of mystification attendant upon their prior
publication, what does the captain do but claim them all, _Songs of
Zion_ and sentimental ballad alike, as Marvell's. This of course brought
the critics, ever anxious to air their erudition, down upon his head,
raised his anger, and occasioned the destruction of the book.

Mr. Grosart says that Captain Thompson states that the _Horatian Ode_
was in Marvell's handwriting. I cannot discover where this statement is
made, though it is made of other poems in the volume, also published for
the first time by the captain.

All, therefore, we know is that the Ode was first published in 1776 by
an editor who says he found it copied in a book, subsequently destroyed,
which contained (among other things) some poems written in Marvell's
handwriting, and that this book was given to the editor by a
grand-nephew of the poet.

Yet I imagine, poor as this evidence may seem to be, no student of
Marvell's life and character (so far as his life reveals his character),
and of his verse (so much of it as is positively known), wants more
evidence to satisfy him that the _Horatian Ode_ is as surely Marvell's
as the lines upon _Appleton House_, the _Bermudas_, _To his Coy
Mistress_, and _The Garden_.

The great popularity of this Ode undoubtedly rests on the three
stanzas:--

"That thence the royal actor borne,
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands;
Did clap their bloody hands:

He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;

Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed."

It is strange that the death of the king should be so nobly sung in an
Ode bearing Cromwell's name and dedicate to his genius:--

"So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star;

...

Then burning through the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
The force of angry Heaven's flame;
And if w