No More Learning

But we shall not do full justice to his public
integrity, if we do not bear in mind the corruption
of the age in whicb he lived; the manifold apos-
tasies amidst which he retained his conscience ;
and the effect which such wide -spread profligacy
must have had in making thousands almost scep-
tical as to whether there were such a thing as
public virtue at all. Such a relaxation in the
code of speculative morals, is one of the worst
results of general profligacy in practice. But
Andrew Marvell was not to be deluded ; and
amidst corruption perfectly unparalleled, he still
continued untainted. We are accustomed to hear
of his virtue as a truly Roman virtue, and so it
was ; but it was something more. Only the best
pages of Boman history can supply a parallel :
there was no Cincinnatus in those Ages of her
shame which alone can be compared with those
of Charles II. It were easier to find a Cincinna-
tus during the era of the English Commonwealth,
than an Andrew Marvell in the age of Com mo-
dus.

The integrity and patriotism which distin-
guished him in his relations to the Court, also



Digitized by VjOOQIC



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. h

marked all his public conduct. He was evidently
most scrupulously honest and faitliful in the dis-
charge of his duty to his constituents ; and, as we
have seen, almost punctilious in guarding against
any thing which could tarnish his fair fame, or
defile his conscience. On reviewing the whole
of his public conduct, we may well say that he
attained his wish, expressed in the lines which
he has written in imitation of a chorus in the
Thyestes of Seneca : —

" Climb at court for me that will-
Tottering favour's pinnacle;
All I seek is to lie still.
Settled in some secret nest,
In calm leisure let me rest,
And far oflf the public stage,
Pass away my silent age.

Thus, when without noise,. unknown,.

I have lived out all my span,
I shall die without a groan,

An old honest countryman. '*

He seems to have been as amiable in his pri-
vate as he was estimable in his public character.
So far as any documents throw light upon the
subject, the same integrity appears to have be-
longed to both. He is described as of a very
reserved and quiet temper; but, like Addison
(whom in this respect as in some few others he
resembled,) exceedingly facetious and lively
amonccst his intimate friends. His disinterested



Digitized by VjOOQIC



Hi KOTICK OF TIIK AUTHOR.

championship of others is no less a proof of his
sympathy with the oppressed than of his abhor-
rence of oppression ; and many pleasing traits of
amiability occur in his private correspondence as
well as in his writings. On the whole, we think
that Marvell's epitaph, strong as the terms of
panegyric are, records little more than the truth ;
and that it was not in the vain spirit of boasting,
but in the honest consciousness of virtue and in-
tegrity, that he himself concludes a letter to one
of his correspondents in the words —

"Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;
Fortunam ex aliis. "



*^* The foregoing notice of Marvell (which is,
on the whole, the best in print,) has been taken
from the Edinburgh Rtview, and is said to have
been written by Mr. Henry Rogers. * The editor
has shortened it by some omissions, and hjvs added
a few notes. He has also given fuller extracts
from MarvelPs prose.

There has been no edition of MarvelFs poems
since 1776, and that seems to have retained the
blunders of the three previous editions, beside
adding a few of its own. If it were possible to
reverse the author's meaning by any ingenuity
of punctuation, the occasion seems never to have
been neglected. In the present edition, all the

* Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.



Digitized by VjOOQIC



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. lili

more apparent errors have been corrected, and
some advance made toward a pure text. The
poems were never published, or at any rate, col-
lected, by the author himself.

The intellect of Marvell was a remarkably
compact and sincere one, and his habitual charac-
ter was that of prudence and upnghtness.