its leisurely way upstream,
passing Upnor Castle, which had guns but no ammunition, till it was
almost within reach of Chatham, where lay the royal navy. General Monk,
who was the handy man of the period, and whose authority was always
invoked when the king he had restored was in greater trouble than usual,
had hastily collected what troops he could muster, and marched to
protect Chatham; but what were wanted were ships, not troops. The Dutch
had no mind to land, and after firing three warships (the _Royal James_,
the _Royal Oak_, and the _London_), and capturing the _Royal Charles_,
"they thought they had done enough, and made use of the ebb to carry
them back again."[129:1] These events occupied the tenth to the
fifteenth of June, and for the impression they produced on Marvell's
mind we are not dependent upon his restrained letters to his
constituents, but can turn to his longest rhymed satire, which is
believed to have been first printed, anonymously of course, as a
broadsheet in August 1667.

This poem is called _The Last Instructions to a Painter about the Dutch
Wars_, 1667. The title was derived from Waller's panegyric poem on the
occasion of the Duke of York's victory over the Dutch on the 3rd of June
1665, when Opdam, the Dutch admiral, was blown up with his ship.[129:2]
Sir John Denham, a brother satirist of Marvell's, and with as good an
excuse for hating the Duke of York as this world affords, had seized
upon the same idea and published four satirical poems on these same
Dutch Wars, entitled _Directions to a Painter_ (see _Poems on Affairs of
State_, 1703, vol. i.).

Marvell's satire, which runs to 900 lines, is essentially a House of
Commons poem, and could only have been written by a member. It is
intensely "lobbyish" and "occasional." To understand its allusions, to
appreciate its "pain-giving" capacity to the full, is now impossible.
Still, the reader of Clarendon's _Life_, Pepys's _Diary_, and Burnet's
_History_, to name only popular books, will have no difficulty in
entering into the spirit of the performance. As a poem it is rough in
execution, careless, breathless. A rugged style was then in vogue. Even
Milton could write his lines to the Cambridge Carrier somewhat in this
manner. Marvell has nothing of the magnificence of Dryden, or of the
finished malice of Pope. He plays the part, and it is sincerely played,
of the old, honest member of Parliament who loves his country and hates
rogues and spea