ll's death--that the small
folio appeared with a fine portrait, still dear to the collector, which
contains for the first time what may be called the "garden-poetry" of
our author, together with some specimens of his political and satirical
versification.

Marvell's most famous poem--_The Ode upon Cromwell's Return from
Ireland_--is not included in the 1681 volume, and remained in manuscript
until 1776, as also did the poem upon Cromwell's death.

The remainder of the political poems, which had made their first
appearance as broadsheets, were reprinted after the Revolution in the
well-known _Collection of Poems on Affairs of State_.[35:1] These verses
were never owned by Marvell, and it is probable that some of them,
though attributed to him, are not his at all. We have only tradition to
go by. In the case of political satires, squibs, epigrams, rough popular
occasional rhymes flung off both in haste and heat to be sold with old
ballads in the market-place, we need not seek for better evidence than
tradition, which indeed is often the only external evidence we have for
the authorship of much more important things.

Now to return to the Nunappleton poetry.

In a poem of 776 lines Marvell tells the story and describes the charms
of the house which Lord Fairfax built for himself during the war, and to
which, as just narrated, he retired in the summer of 1650. The story is
only too familiar a one, being writ large over many a fine property.
Appleton House was Church loot. In the time of Henry, "the majestic lord
that burst the bonds of Rome," the old house at Nunappleton was a
Cistercian nunnery, a religious house. In 1542 the community was
suppressed and its property appropriated by the great-grandfather of the
Lord-General--one Sir Thomas Fairfax. The religious buildings were
pulled down and a new secular house rose in their place. In these bare
and sordid facts there is not much room for poetry, but there is a story
thrown in. Shortly before 1518 a Yorkshire heiress, bearing the
unromantic name of Isabella Thwaites, was living in the Cistercian
abbey, under the guardianship of the abbess, the Lady Anna Langton.
Property under the care of the Church is always supposed to be in
danger, and the Lady Anna was freely credited with the desire to make a
nun of her ward, and so keep her broad acres in Wharfedale and her
messuages in York for the use of Mother Church. None the less, the young
lady was allowed to go about and