Marvell submits, and he would have you
leave the thing as it is.

"_Sir Robert Holmes_ saw the whole action. Marvell flung about three
or four times with his hat, and then gave Harcourt a box on the ear.

"Sir _Henry Capel_ desires, now that his honour is concerned, that
Holmes may explain, whether he saw not Marvell with his hat only give
Harcourt the stroke 'at that time.' Possibly 'at another time' it
might be.

"The _Speaker_. Both Holmes and Capel are in the right. But Marvell
struck Harcourt so home, that his fist, as well as his hat, hit him.

"Sir _R. Howard_ hopes the house will not have Harcourt say he
received a blow, when he has not. He thinks what has been said by
them both sufficient.

"Mr. _Garraway_ hopes, that by the debate we shall not make the thing
greater than it is. Would have them both reprimanded for it.

"Mr. Sec. _Williamson_ submits the honour of the house to the house.
Would have them made friends, and give that necessary assurance to
the house, and he, for his part, remains satisfied.

"Sir _Tho. Meres_. By our long sitting together, we lose, by our
familiarity and acquaintance, the decencies of the house. He has seen
500 in the house, and people very orderly; not so much as to read a
letter, or set up a foot. One could scarce know anybody in the house,
but him that spoke. He would have the Speaker declare that order
ought to be kept; but as to that gentleman (Marvell) to rest
satisfied."

The general impression left upon the mind is that of a friendly-familiar
but choleric gentleman, full of likes and dislikes, readier with his
tongue in the lobby than with "set" speeches in the Chamber. A solitary
politician with a biting pen. Satirists must not complain if they have
enemies.

Marvell's vein of satire was never worked out, and the political poems
of his last decade are fuller than ever of a savage humour. How he kept
his ears is a repeated wonder. He is said to have been on terms of
intimate friendship with Prince Rupert, and it is a steady tradition
that the king was one of his amused readers. It is hard to believe that
even Charles the Second could have seen any humour, good or bad, in such
a couplet:--

"The poor Priapus King, led by the nose,
Looks as a thing set up to scare the crows."

Nor can the following verses have been read with much pleasure, either
at Whitehall or in a punt whilst fi