has, I am sure, preserved me from
some, and possibly from many, blunders.

A.B.

3 NEW SQUARE, LINCOLN'S INN,
June 3, 1905.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
EARLY DAYS AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 1

CHAPTER II

"THE HAPPY GARDEN-STATE" 19

CHAPTER III

A CIVIL SERVANT IN THE TIME OF THE COMMONWEALTH 48

CHAPTER IV

IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 75

CHAPTER V

"THE REHEARSAL TRANSPROSED" 151

CHAPTER VI

LAST YEARS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 179

CHAPTER VII

FINAL SATIRES AND DEATH 211

CHAPTER VIII

WORK AS A MAN OF LETTERS 225

INDEX 233

ANDREW MARVELL

CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

The name of Andrew Marvell ever sounds sweet, and always has, to use
words of Charles Lamb's, a fine relish to the ear. As the author of
poetry of exquisite quality, where for the last time may be heard the
priceless note of the Elizabethan lyricist, whilst at the same moment
utterance is being given to thoughts and feelings which reach far
forward to Wordsworth and Shelley, Marvell can never be forgotten in his
native England.

Lines of Marvell's poetry have secured the final honours, and incurred
the peril, of becoming "familiar quotations" ready for use on a great
variety of occasion. We may, perhaps, have been bidden once or twice too
often to remember how the Royal actor

"Nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene,"

or have been assured to our surprise by some self-satisfied worldling
how he always hears at his back,

"Time's winged chariot hurrying near."

A true poet can, however, never be defiled by the rough usage of the
populace.

As a politician Marvell lives in the old-fashioned vivacious
history-books (which if they die out, as they show some signs of doing,
will carry with them half the historic sense of the nation) as the hero
of an anecdote of an unsuccessful attempt made upon his political virtue
by a minister of the Crown, as a rare type of an inflexible patriot, and
as the last member of the House of Commons who was content to take wages
from, instead of contributing to the support of, his constituen