member of Parliament, a shrewd, level-headed man of
affairs, who knew Lord Clarendon in the way we know men we have to see
on business matters, whose speeches we can listen to, and whose conduct
we discuss and criticise. "Gently scan your brother-man" is a precept
Marvell never took to heart; nor is the House of Commons a place where
it is either preached or practised.

When Clarendon was well nigh at the height of his great unpopularity, he
built himself a fine big house on a site given him by the king where now
is Albemarle Street. Where did he get the money from? He employed, in
building it, the stones of St. Paul's Cathedral. True, he bought the
stones from the Dean and Chapter, but if the man you hate builds a great
house out of the ruins of a church, is it likely that so trivial a fact
as a cash payment for the materials is going to be mentioned? Splendid
furniture and noble pictures were to be seen going into the new
palace--the gifts, so it was alleged, of foreign ambassadors. What was
the consideration for these donations? England's honour! Clarendon House
was at once named Dunkirk House, Holland House, Tangiers House.

Here is Marvell upon it:--

UPON HIS HOUSE

"Here lie the sacred bones
Of Paul beguiled of his stones:
Here lie golden briberies,
The price of ruined families;
The cavalier's debenture wall,
Fixed on an eccentric basis:
Here's Dunkirk-Town and Tangier-Hull,
The Queen's marriage and all,
The Dutchman's _templum pacis_."

Clarendon's fall was rapid. He knew the house of Stuart too well to
place any reliance upon the king. Evelyn visited him on the 27th of
August 1667 after the seals had been taken away from him, and found him
"in his bed-chamber very sad." His enemies were numerous and powerful,
both in the House of Commons and at Court, where all the buffoons and
ladies of pleasure hated him, because--so Evelyn says--"he thwarted some
of them and stood in their way." In November Evelyn called again and
found the late Lord-Chancellor in the garden of his new-built palace,
sitting in his gout wheel-chair and watching the new gates setting up
towards the north and the fields. "He looked and spoke very
disconsolately. After some while deploring his condition to me, I took
my leave. Next morning I heard he was gone."[139:1]

The news was true; on Saturday, the 29th of November, he drove to Erith,
and after a terrible tossing on the nobly impartial Chan