e would speak true,
Much to the man is due,

Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot),

Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould."

The last stanzas of all have much pith and meaning in them:--

"But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on!
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect.

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain."[67:1]

It is not surprising that this Ode was not published in 1650--if indeed
it was the work of that, and not of a later year. There is nothing
either of the courtier or of the partisan about its stately
versification and sober, solemn thought. Entire self-possession,
dignity, criticism of a great man and a strange career by 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 alive, and gazed on his features as he lay
dead--he knew his ambition, his greatness, his power, and where that
power lay. How much might we unwittingly have lost, if Captain Thompson
had not printed a poem which for more than a century of years had
remained unknown, and exposed to all the risks of a single manuscript
copy!

When Cromwell sent his picture to Queen Christina of Sweden to
commemorate the peace he concluded with her in 1654, Marvell, though not
then attached to the public service, was employed to write the Latin
couplet that accompanied the picture. He discharged his task as
follows:--

_In effigiem Oliveri Cromwell_.

"Haec est quae toties inimicos umbra fugavit
At sub qua cives otia lenta terunt."

The authorship of these lines is often attributed to Milton, but there
is little doubt they are of Marvell's composition. They might easily
have been better.

Marvell became Milton's assistant in September 1657, and the friendship
between the two men was thus consolidated by the strong ties of a
common duty. Milton's blindness making him unfit to attend the reception
of foreign embassi