churches. Their indefatigable member forewarns them of the difficulties likely to stand in their way, and of the small support he meets with in his suit. "I believe in this conjuncture I shall be left alone in attempting any thing for your patronage, notwithstanding the assistance you expected from some others, for so they signify to me, and I doubt you will hardly agree about the levying of your minister's maintenance. But in this thing, according as I write to you, you must be very reserved, and rest much upon your prudence. I would not have you suspect any misintelligence betwixt my partner and me, because we write not to you jointly, as Mr. Ramsden and I used to do, yet there is all civility betwixt us; but it was the Colonel's sense that we should be left each to his own discretion in writing." Yet misintelligence there certainly was, which by some means or other, ripened to absolute division before the 1st of June, when Marvell wrote like a patriot and a gentleman. "The bonds of civility betwixt Colonel Gilby and myself being unhappily snapped in pieces, and in such manner that I cannot see how it is possible ever to knit them again; the only trouble that I have is, lest by our misintelligence your business should receive any disadvantage. Truly I believe that as to your public trust, and the discharge thereof we do each of us still retain the principles upon which we first undertook it, and that though perhaps we may differ in our advice concerning the way of proceeding, yet we have the same good ends in general; and by this unlucky falling out, we shall be provoked to a greater emulation of serving you. I must beg you to pardon me for writing singly to you, for if I wanted my right hand, yet I would scribble to you with my left, rather than neglect your business. In the mean time I beseech you pardon my weakness; for there are some things which men ought not, others, that they cannot, patiently suffer." Noble and clear as he was, he could not escape calumny; for in his next he requests his constituents to believe no little stories concerning himself, "for I believe you to know by this that you have lately heard some very false tales concerning me." * * * The temper of the new Parliament was different, and much less moderate than that of the assembly by which the King was restored. For though some decided Royalists had found their way into the Convention, the majority, though favourable to the restoration of limited monarchy, were of the Presbyterian party, and attached to the Presbyterian pastors. Hence Charles and his Ministers thought it necessary to temporize, to try their way, to hold out hopes, that a mitigated Episcopacy, an expurgate Liturgy, and an optional compliance with Canons and Rubrics, would leave the intruding ministers, (as the strict Episcopalians called them,) who had complied with the Commonwealth, in pos session of their benefices. Calamy and Baxter, destined to be among the brightest ornaments of Non-conformity, were even appointed King's chaplains. They, and other leading pastors, were tempted with the offer of Bishoprics; an offer with which Sharp, in an evil hour for himself, for Scotland, and for Episcopacy, complied. But Calamy and Baxter had too much pride, too much virtue, or too ill an opinion of the hand that offered, to accept the mitre. But the second Parliament adopted all the principles, and cherished the resentments, of those highflying Prelatists, whose ill counsels had rendered the virtues of the first Charles unprofitable. The restoration of the Bishops to their seats in the House of Lords, and to their other temporalities, which considering the manner in which they had been deprived, was indeed an act of justice, had not been proposed to the convention, but was speedily carried by the Parliament of 1661. The bill of conformity shortly followed, which by a strange coincidence, if it were not really concerted, took effect on St. Bartholomew's day, whereby 2000 ministers, unexpectedly conscientious, were ejected in one day. Were it not that the whole of Marvell's bold and consistent conduct forbids the supposition, it might be conjectured that he declined to contend against measures which he could not successfully have opposed. Between June 1661, and March 1663, there is an hiatus in his correspondence, occasioned by an absence of Andrew's that has never been satisfactorily accounted for. In his letters he speaks of his private concernments without specifying what those private concernments were. In the mean while there was talk of supplying his place. Lord Bellasis, the deputy governor of Hull under the Duke of Monmouth, seems to have exerted himself especially on this occasion, but without effect. Of the motives of Marvell's withdrawing we are utterly ignorant; but we cannot help thinking that he was glad to be away from proceedings to which he could not have put an effectual stop, which he saw necessitated a revolution, and could not foresee that it would be a bloodless revolution. The representations of his constituents, or the apprehension of losing his seat, brought Marvell home perhaps sooner than he intended. He seems not to have taken the interference of Lord Bellasis in good part, for immediately after his return he writes thus : GENTLEMEN, : "Westminster, April 2, 1663. Being newly arrived in town, and full of businesse, yet I could not neglect to give you notice that this day I have been in the House, and found my place empty; though it seems that some persons would have been so courteous, as to have filled it for me. You may be assured that as my obligation and affection to your service hath been strong enough to draw me over, without any consideration of mine own private concernments, so I shall now maintain my station with the same vigour and alacrity in your business which I have always testify'd formerly, and which is no more than is due to that kindnesse which I have constantly experienced from you. So at present, though in much haste, saluting you all with my most hearty respects, I remain, Gentlemen, my very worthy friends, Your most affectionate Friend to serve you, ANDREW Marvell.” In the few letters that follow this, previously to the 20th of June, there is little important matter. The hours of the House of Commons were very different then from what they are now, for in the twenty-third letter he mentions it as an unusual thing, that they had sat till six in the evening on the bill for discovery of buying and selling of places. It may be remarked, that notwithstanding the slavish and intolerant principles of that Parliament, they made a firm stand against the progress of corruption, and were by no means lavish in granting the public money. Charles the second was continually in need: his extravagance and indolence prevented him from taking advantage of their niggardly servility, that would have preferred a cheap slavery to an expensive freedom. Had Charles possessed the virtues of his father, and his father's zeal for the Established Church, England would have become the most absolute monarchy in Europe. Providence, ever at work to draw good out of evil, made Charles's mistresses the conservators of British liberty. Yet more are we indebted to the man, whoever he was, that converted James the Second to the Romish communion; for nothing but the dread of Popery would have reconciled the nobility and clergy to that resistance which the people were not yet strong enough to conduct successfully of themselves. Marvell was not hitherto reckoned among the decided enemies of the court; for we find him appointed, in June, 1663, to accompany Lord Carlisle on an embassy to Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. He tells the Corporation of Hull, "that it is no new thing for members of our House to be dispensed with, for the service of the King and the nation in foreign parts. And you may be sure I will not stirre without special leave of the House, so that you may be freed from any possibility of being importuned or tempted to make any other choice in my absence." Shortly after he thus announces his departure :—“ Being this day taking barge for Gravesend, there to embark for Archangel, : so to Moscow, thence for Sweden, and last of all for Denmark, all which I hope, by God's blessing, to finish within twelve months' time: I do hereby, with my last and most serious thoughts, salute you, rendering you all hearty thanks for your great kindness and friendship to me upon all occasions, and ardently beseeching God to keep you all in his gracious protection, to your own honour, and the welfare and flourishing of your Corporation, to which I am, and shall ever continue, a most affectionate and devoted servant. I undertake this voyage with the order and good liking of his Majesty, and by leave given me from the House, and entered in the journall; and having received, moreover, your approbation, I go, therefore, with more ease and satisfaction of mind, and augurate to myself the happier success in all my proceedings. Your known prudence makes it unnecessary for me to leave my advice or counsell with you at parting; yet can I not forbear, out of the superabundance of my care and affection for you, to recommend to you a good correspondence with the garrison, so long as his Majesty shall think fit to continue it; unto which, and all your other concerns, as Colonel Gilby hath been, and will be, always mainly instrumentall, and do you all the right imaginable; so could I wish, as I do not doubt that you would, upon any past or future occasion, confide much in his discretion, which he will never deny you the use of. This I say to you with a very good intent, and I know will be no otherwise understood by you." It is to be regretted that the practice of tour writing was less in vogue in the seventeenth century than at present. How interesting would have been Marvell's observations on the northern courts—on the deep politics of Sweden, then ruled by the sagacious and unprincipled Charles the Eleventh-and the barbaric splendour of Russia, which had hardly begun to be considered as a member of the European system. But no notes or letters relative to this period of his life have been preserved. One thing is certain; he had but little reason to be satisfied with what was doing in England during his absence. Perhaps he was not sorry to be spared the pain of witnessing ruinous and treasonable measures which he could not have opposed. The besotted Parliament, in treacherous compliance with the King's ill purposes, had relinquished the Triennial Act without any security except a powerless clause, " that Parliaments should not be interrupted more than three years at the most." In weak compliance, to a popular clamour, excited by that love of plunder which the English have inherited from the Scandinavian pirates, and aided by the King's desire to be fingering the supplies, they had engaged in a needless and impolitic war with Holland, a state whose friendship we ought to have cultivated, both from our interest as a mercantile, and our duty as a Protestant people. But the prosperity of a Republic is an abomination in the eyes of the liberty-haters even unto this day. We are sorry that Marvell had, by a satirical piece (published probably during the Protectorate), contributed to influence the national prejudices of the vulgar against the Dutch, and what is still worse, he makes the natural disadvantages which it was the glory of that industrious race to have surmounted, a topic of ridicule and insult : : 66 Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, By English pilots when they heav'd the lead, Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell, Fell on the Dutch by just propriety: Glad, then, as miners who have found the ore, To shew them what's their mare liberum.* A daily deluge over them does boil; The earth and water play at level coyl. And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest ; And oft the tritons and the sea nymphs saw, Whole shoals of Dutch serv'd up for cabillau. According to the work of Grotius so named, which was answered by Selden in his Mare Clausum. |