No More Learning

He had
not been long there, when, like Chillingworth,
he was ensnared by the proselyting arts of the
Jesuits, who, with subtilty equal to their zeal,
commissioned their emissaries specially to aim at
the conversion of such of the university youths
as gave indications of signal ability. It appears
that he was inveigled from college to London.
Having been tracked thither by his father, he
was discovered, after some months, in a booksel-
ler's shop, and restored to the university. During
the two succeeding years he pursued his studies



Digitized by VjOOQIC



NOTICE OP THE AUTHOR. XI

with diligence. About this peiiod he lost his
father under circumstances peculiarly affecting.

The death of this good man forms one of those
little domestic tragedies — not infrequent in real
life — to which imagination itself can scarcely add
one touching incident,, and which are as affecting
as any that fiction can furnish. It appears that
on the other side of the Humber lived a lady (an
intimate friend of Marveirs father) who had an
only and lovely daughter, endeared to all who
knew her, and so much the idol of her mother
that she could scarcely bear her to be out of her
sight On one occasion, however, she yielded to
the importunity of Mr. Marvell, and suffered her
daughter to cross the water to Hull, to be present
at the baptism of one of his children. The day
afler the ceremony, the young lady was to return.
The weather was tempestuous, and on reaching
the river's side, accompanied by Mr. Marvell, the
boatmen endeavored to dissuade her from cross-
ing. But, afraid of alarming her mother by pro-
longing her absence, she persisted. Mr. Marvell
added his importunities to the arguments of the
boatmen, but in vain.
Finding her inflexible, he
told her that as she had incurred this peril to
oblige him, he felt himself ** bound in honour and
conscience" not to desert her, and, having pre-
vailed on some boatmen to hazard the passage,
they embarked together. As they were putting
off, he fiung his gold-headed cane on shore, and'



Digitized by VjOOQIC



Xll NOTICE OP THE AUTHOR.

told the spectators that, in case he should never
return, it was to be given his son, with the in-
junction "to remember his father. " The boat
was upset, and both were lost. *

As soon as the mother had a little recovered
the shock, she sent for the young orphan, inti-
mated her intention to provide for his education,
and at her death left him all she possessed.

One of his biographers informs us that young
Marvell took his degree of B. A. in the year 1638,
and was admitted to a scholarship. f If so, he
did not retain it very long. Though in no fur-
ther danger from the Jesuits, he seems to have
been beset by more formidable enemies in his
own bosom. Either from too early becoming his
own master, or from being betrayed into follies
to which his lively temperament and social quali-
ties readily exposed him, he became negligent of
his studies; and having absented himself from
certain " exercises," and otherwise been guilty of
sundry unacademic irregularities, he, with four
others, was adjudged by the masters and seniors
unworthy of *' receiving any further benefit from
the college," unless they showed just cause to the



* Another and more poetical version of the story is, that

Mr. Marvell had a presentiment of his fate and that he threw

on shore his staff, as the boat shoved off, crying, " Ho, for

, Heaven ! '* See Hartley Coleridge's Life of Marvell in Bio-

graphia Borcalis, 1st cd. p. 6. — Ed.