lder Andrew may also be said of the younger: he
was happy in the moment of his death. The one just escaped the Civil
War, the other the Popish Plot.

Marvell was thought to have been poisoned. Such a suspicion in those bad
times was not far-fetched. His satires, rough but moving, had been
widely read, and his fears for the Constitution, his dread of

"The grim Monster, Arbitrary Power,
The ugliest Giant ever trod the earth,"

infested many breasts, and bred terror.

"Marvell, the Island's watchful sentinel,
Stood in the gap and bravely kept his post."

The post was one of obvious danger, and

"Whether Fate or Art untwin'd his thread
Remains in doubt."[220:1]

The doubt has now been dissipated by the research of an accomplished
physician, Dr. Gee, who in 1874 communicated to the _Athenaeum_ (March 7,
1874) an extract from Richard Morton's {Greek: Pyretologia} (1692),
containing a full account of Marvell's sickness and death. Art "untwin'd
his thread," but it was the doctor's art. Dr. Gee's translation of
Morton's medical Latin is as follows:--

"In this manner was that most famous man Andrew Marvell carried off
from amongst the living before his time, to the great loss of the
republic, and especially the republic of letters; through the
ignorance of an old conceited doctor, who was in the habit on all
occasions of raving excessively against Peruvian bark, as if it were
a common plague. Howbeit, without any clear indication, in the
interval after a third fit of regular tertian ague, and by way of
preparation (so that all things might seem to be done most
methodically), blood was copiously drawn from the patient, who was
advanced in years." [Here follow more details of treatment, which I
pass over.] "The way having been made ready after this fashion, at
the beginning of the next fit, a great febrifuge was given, a
draught, that is to say, of Venice treacle, etc. By the doctor's
orders, the patient was covered up close with blankets, say rather,
was buried under them; and composed himself to sleep and sweat, so
that he might escape the cold shivers which are wont to accompany the
onset of the ague-fit. He was seized with the deepest sleep and
colliquative sweats, and in the short space of twenty-four hours from
the time of the ague-fit, he died comatose. He died, who, had a
single ounce of Peruvian bark been properly given, might e