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William Blake

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole:

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

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noun

One who, or that which, accelerates.

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ANDREW MARVEU..

115 lines
Andrew Marvell·1621–1678
ical vacancies. Marvell opposed thiswhich was really a compromise between thsChurch and the Duke of York. It was, he s; " "premature ; the King was not in a decliningage, " Whatever prince Gort gives us, we musttrust him." If men were taught really to liveup to the Protestant religion they would then beestablished against the temptations of Popery,or a prince Popislily affected. Marvell added 'that he was not used to speak in the House, andhe spoke abruptly. The Bill was committed,but " died away, the Coniinittee disdaining tnot daring publicly to enter upon it." On the 29th there was a debate upon thealleged striking of Sir Philip Harconrt byMarvell, who had stumbled over Harcourt's foot.Both parties declared it was an accident, cthrust made out of their great familiarity,the Speaker liad noticed the incident, and SirJob Charlton, supported by Colonel Sandys —both of whom Marvell had attacked in hissatires — moved that Marvell should be sent tothe Tower. The matter was ultimately allowedto drop. At Christmas, 1677, Marvell published 1an important historical pamphlet called i"Account of the Growth of Popery and ArbitraryGovemmciil," v.ritte;i. as he said, "with no INTRODUCTION, xlvii other intent than of mere fidelity and service tohis Majesty ; and God forbid that it shouldhave any other eflfect than that the mouth of alliniquity and of flatterers may be stopped, andthat his Majesty, having discerned the disease,may, with his healing touch, apply the remedy."About the same time appeared a piece oftenattributed to Marvell, called "A SeasonableArgument to persuade all the Grand Juries inEngland to petition for a New Parliament."This pamphlet gave brief and uncomplimentarycharacters of a number of the supporters of theGovernment, and the London Gazette forMarch 21 to 25, 1678, contained an offer of areward of £^0 for the discovery of the printer orpublisher, and £iQO for the banders to the pressof those "seditious and scandalous libels."*In a letter written in June, Marvell says thatgreat rewards were offered in private, but thathe was not questioned, though it was hinted inseveral books that he was the author. In 1682 * Both pieces are attributed to " Andrew " in a quartopamphlet of 1678 called " A Letter from Amsterdam to aFriend in England." The writer says, ** Tis well he isnow transprosed into politics ; they say he had much adoto live upon poetry." The two MSS. of " A SeasonableArgument " in the British Museum (Lansdowne MSS.805, f. 83, and Addl. MSS. 4106, f. 166), differ con-siderably. xlviu ANDREW MARVELL. Dryden, in ihe Epistle to the Whigs prefixed to"The Medal," spoke of "your dead author'spamphlet called 'The Growth of Popery.' " On July 29, 1678, Marvell had an interviewwith the Corporation at Hull, and on August16, three weeks later, he died in London.* Some believed that he had been poisoned ;but according to an account given in Dr,Richard Morton's " Pyretologia" (1692), Marwellhad tertian ague, and the doctor gave him agreat febrifuge, a draft of Veiiice treacle, andcaused him to be covered with blankets. Hewas then seized with deep sleep and sweats, andtwenty-four hours later passed away while in acomatose state. He was buried under the pewson the south side of the church of St. Giles- in-lhe-Fields ; the sexton afterwards told Aubrey thatthe grave was under the window which containsa red lion. The town of Hull voted ^50 for thefuneral, and in 1688 his late constituents collectedmoney for the erection of a monument, but theRoyalist Rector would not allow it to be put up. On March 29, 1679, letters of administrationwere granted to Mary Marvell, relict, and John • "Andrew Marvell dieil yesterday of apoplexy ' (Col.Grosvenor to G. Treby, M.P., Aug. 17, 1678.— Hisl.MSS.Comm., I3(h Repon. Ft. VI. p. B). Hewashuiiedonthei8lh("LifeofAnthony Wood," ed. Clark, II. 414). INTRODUCTION. xlix Greene, creditor of Andrew Man'cll, late of St.Giles-in-the-Fields. Nothing more is known ofMarvell's wife, save that she did all she could topreser\'e her husband's fame, by carefullycollecting such of his verses as were not of acontroversial nature, and publishing them in afolio volume, dated 1681, i^ith the followingnotice : " To the Reader : These are tocertify every ingenious reader that all thesepoems, as also the others things in this book,are printed according to the exact copies of mylate dear husband, under his own handwriting,being found since his death among his otherpapers. Witness my hand this 15th day ofOctober, 1680. Mary Marvell." Limits of space have caused the omission ofdetails respecting Marvell's prose works. Buta few words must be said about the part he tookin two of the Church controversies of his day. In 1670 Samuel Parker, a young man ofthirty, who, after being brought up as a Puritan,had joined the Church of England at theRestoration, and become chaplain to ArchbishopSheldon, and Archdeacon of Canterbury,published his "Discourse of EcclesiasticalPolity, wherein the authority of the Civil Magis-trate over the consciences of subjects in matters d