mbrance of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of
attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I must confess in
my condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for them to find a
man so fit every way for that purpose as this gentleman: one who, I
believe, in a short time would be able to do them as much service as
Mr. Ascan. This, my Lord, I write sincerely without any other end
than to perform my duty to the publick in helping them to an humble
servant; laying aside those jealousies and that emulation which mine
own condition might suggest to me by bringing in such a coadjutor;
and remain, my Lord, your most obliged and faithful servant,
JOHN MILTON.

"_Feb. 21, 1652_ (O.S.)."

Addressed: "For the Honourable the Lord Bradshawe."

No handsomer testimonial than this was ever penned. It was unsuccessful.
When Milton wrote to Bradshaw, Weckherlin was in fact dead, and on his
retirement in the previous December, John Thurloe, the very handy
Secretary of the Council, had for the time assumed Weckherlin's duties,
and obtained on that score an addition to his salary. No actual vacancy,
therefore, occurred on Weckherlin's death. None the less, shortly
afterwards, Philip Meadows, also a Cambridge man, was appointed Milton's
assistant, and Marvell had to wait four years longer for his place.

When Marvell's connection with Eton first began is not to be
ascertained. His friend, John Oxenbridge, who had been driven from his
tutorship at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, by Laud in 1634 to

"Where the remote Bermudas ride,"

but had returned home, became in 1652 a Fellow of Eton College. Oliver
St. John, who at this time was Chancellor of the University of
Cambridge, and had married Oxenbridge's sister, was known to Marvell,
and may have introduced him to his brother-in-law. At all events Marvell
frequently visited Eton, where, however, he had the good sense to
frequent not merely the cloisters, but the poor lodgings where the "ever
memorable" John Hales, ejected from his fellowship, spent the last years
of his life.

"I account it no small honour to have grown up into some part of his
acquaintance and conversed awhile with the living remains of one of
the clearest heads and best prepared breasts in Christendom."[51:1]

Hales died in 1656, and his _Golden Remains_ were first published three
years later. Marvell's wo