"THE HAPPY GARDEN-STATE"
The seventeenth century was the century of travel for educated
Englishmen--of long, leisurely travel. Milton's famous Italian tour
lasted fifteen months. John Evelyn's _Wander-Jahre_ occupied four years.
Andrew Marvell lived abroad in France, Spain, Holland, and Italy from
1642 to 1646, and we have Milton's word for it that when the traveller
returned he was well acquainted with the French, Dutch, Spanish, and
Italian languages. Andrew Marvell was a highly cultivated man, living in
a highly cultivated age, in daily converse with scholars, poets,
philosophers, and men of very considerable scientific attainments. In
reading Clarendon and Burnet, and whilst turning over Aubrey's
delightful gossip, it is impossible not to be struck with the width and
variety of the learning as well as with the wit of the period.
Intellectually it was a great age.
No record remains of Marvell's travels during these years. Up and down
his writings the careful reader will come across pleasant references to
foreign manners and customs, betokening the keen humorous observer, and
the possession of that wide-eyed faculty that takes a pleasure, half
contemplative, half the result of animal spirits, in watching the way of
the world wherever you may chance to be. Of another and an earlier
traveller, Sir Henry Wotton, we read in "Walton's _Life_."
"And whereas he was noted in his youth to have a sharp wit and apt to
jest, _that_ by time, travel, and conversation was so polished and
made useful, that his company seemed to be one of the delights of
mankind."
In all Marvell's work, as poet, as Parliamentarian, as controversialist,
we shall see the travelled man. Certainly no one ever more fully grasped
the sense of the famous sentence given by Wotton to Milton, when the
latter was starting on his travels: "_I pensieri stretti ed il viso
sciolto._"
Marvell was in Rome about 1645. I can give no other date during the
whole four years. This, our only date, rests upon an assumption. In
Marvell's earliest satirical poem he gives an account of a visit he paid
in Rome to the unlucky poetaster Flecknoe, who was not in Rome until
1645. If, therefore, the poem records an actual visit, it follows that
the author of the poem was in Rome at the same time. It is not very
near, but it is as near as we can get.
Richard Flecknoe was an Irish priest of blameless life, with a passion
for scribbling and for printing. His exquisite reason for both these
superfluous acts is worth quoting:--
"I write chiefly to avoid idleness, and print to avoid the imputation
(of idleness), and as others do it to live after they are dead, I do
it only not to be thought dead whilst I am alive."[20:1]
Such frankness should have disarmed ridicule, but somehow or another
this amiable man came to be regarded as the type of a dull author, and
his name passed into a proverb for stupidity, so much so that when
Dryden in 1682 was casting about how best to give pain to Shadwell, he
devised the plan of his famous satire, "MacFlecknoe," where in biting
verse he describes Flecknoe (who was happily dead) as an aged Prince--
"Who like Augustus young
Was called to empire and had governed long;
In prose and verse was owned, without dispute,
Through all the realms of nonsense absolute."
Dryden goes on to picture the aged Flecknoe,
"pondering which of all his sons was fit
To reign and wage immortal war with Wit,"
and fixing on Shadwell.
"Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity:
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense."
Thus has it come about that Flecknoe, the Irish priest, whom Marvell
visited in his Roman garret in 1645, bears a name ever memorable in
literature.
Marvell's own poem, though eclipsed by the splendour of Glorious John's
resounding lines, has an interest of its own as being, in its roughly
humorous way, a forerunner of the "Dunciad" and "Grub Street"
literature, by which in sundry moods 'tis "pleasure to be bound." It
describes seeking out the poetaster in his lodging "three staircases
high," at the sign of the Pelican, in a room so small that it seemed "a
coffin set in the stair's head." No sooner was the rhymer unearthed than
straightway he began to recite his poetry in dismal tones, much to his
visitor's dismay:--
"But I who now imagin'd myself brought
To my last trial, in a serious thought
Calm'd the disorders of my youthful breast
And to my martyrdom prepared rest.
Only this frail ambition did remain,
The last distemper of the sober brain,
That there had been some present to assure
The future ages how I did endure."
To stop the cataract of "hideous verse," Marvell invited the scarecrow
to dinner, and waits while he dresses. As they turn to leave, for the
room is so small that the man who comes in last must be the first to go
out, they meet a friend of the poet on the stairs, who makes a third at
dinner. After dinner Flecknoe produces ten quires of paper, from which
the friend proceeds to read, but so infamously as to excite their
author's rage:--
"But all his praises could not now appease
The provok't Author, whom it did displease
To hear his verses by so just a curse
That were ill made, condemned to be read worse:
And how (impossible!) he made yet more
Absurdities in them than were before:
For his untun'd voice did fall or raise
As a deaf man upon the Viol plays,
Making the half-points and the periods run
Confus'der than the atoms in the sun:
Thereat the poet swell'd with anger full,"
and after violent exclamations retires in dudgeon back to his room. The
faithful friend is in despair. What is he to do to make peace? "Who
would commend his mistress now?" Marvell
"counselled him to go in time
Ere the fierce poet's anger turned to rhyme."
The advice was taken, and Marvell, finding himself at last free from
boredom, went off to St. Peter's to return thanks.
This poem is but an unsatisfactory _souvenir de voyage_, but it is all
there is.
What Marvell was doing during the stirring years 1646-1650 is not
known. Even in the most troubled times men go about their business, and
our poet was always a man of affairs. As for his opinions during these
years, we can only guess at them from those to which he afterwards gave
expression. Marvell was neither a Republican nor a Puritan. Like his
father before him, he was a Protestant and a member of the Reformed
Church of England. He stood for both King and Parliament. Archbishop
Laud he distrusted, and it may well be detested, but good churchmen have
often distrusted and even detested their archbishops. Mr. Gladstone had
no great regard for Archbishop Tait. Before the Act of Uniformity and
the repressive legislation that followed upon its heels had driven
English dissent into its final moulds, it was not doctrine but
ceremonies that disturbed men's minds; and Marvell belonged to that
school of English churchmen, by no means the least distinguished school,
which was not disposed to quarrel with their fellow-Christians over
white surplices, the ring in matrimony, or the attitude during Holy
Communion. He shared the belief of a contemporary that no system is bad
enough to destroy a good man, or good enough to save a bad one.
The Civil War was to Marvell what it was to most wise men not devoured
by faction--a deplorable event. Twenty years after he wrote in the
_Rehearsal Transprosed_:--
"Whether it be a war of religion or of liberty it is not worth the
labour to inquire. Whichsoever was at the top, the other was at the
bottom; but upon considering all, I think the cause was too good to
have been fought for. Men ought to have trusted God--they ought to
have trusted the King with that whole matter. The arms of the Church
are prayers and tears, the arms of the subject are patience and
petitions. The King himself being of so accurate and piercing a
judgment would soon have felt it where it stuck. For men may spare
their pains when Nature is at work, and the world will not go the
faster for our driving. Even as his present Majesty's happy
Restoration did itself, so all things else happen in their best and
proper time, without any heed of our officiousness."[24:1]
In the face of this passage and many another of the like spirit, it is
puzzling to find such a man, for example, as Thomas Baker, the ejected
non-juring Fellow and historian of St. John's College, Cambridge
(1656-1740), writing of Marvell as "that bitter republican"; and Dryden,
who probably knew Marvell, comparing his controversial pamphlets with
those of Martin Marprelate, or at all events speaking of Martin
Marprelate as "the Marvell of those times."[24:2] A somewhat
anti-prelatical note runs through Marvell's writings, but it is a
familiar enough note in the works of the English laity, and by no means
dissevers its possessor from the Anglican Church. But there are some
heated expressions in the satires which probably gave rise to the belief
that Marvell was a Republican.[24:3]
During the Commonwealth Marvell was content to be a civil servant. He
entertained for the Lord-Protector the same kind of admiration that such
a loyalist as Chateaubriand could not help feeling for Napoleon. Even
Clarendon's pedantic soul occasionally vibrates as he writes of Oliver,
and compares his reputation in foreign courts with that of his own
royal master. When the Restoration came Marvell rejoiced. Two
old-established things had been destroyed by Cromwell--Kings and
Parliaments, and Marvell was glad to see them both back again in
England.
Some verses of Marvell's attributable to this period (1646-1650) show
him keeping what may be called Royalist company. With a dozen other
friends of Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet and the author of two of
the most famous stanzas in English verse, Marvell contributed some
commendatory lines addressed to his "noble friend, Mr. Richard Lovelace,
upon his Poems," which appeared with the poems themselves in that year
of fate, 1649. "After the murder of the King," says Anthony Wood,
"Lovelace was set at liberty, and having by that time consumed all his
estate, grew very melancholy, became very poor in body and purse, was
the object of charity, went in ragged clothes (whereas when he was in
glory he wore cloth of gold and silver), and mostly lodged in obscure
and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of
servants."
Then it was that _Lucasta_ made its first appearance. When the fortunes
of the gallant poet were at their lowest and never to revive, Marvell
seizes the occasion to deplore the degeneracy of the times, a familiar
theme with poets:--
"Our civil wars have lost the civic crown,
He highest builds who with most art destroys,
And against others' fame his own employs."
He then glances scornfully at the new Presbyterian censorship of the
press:--
"The barbed censurers begin to look
Like the grim consistory on thy book,
And on each line cast a reforming eye,"
and suggests that _Lucasta_ is in danger because in 1642 its author had
been imprisoned by order of the House of Commons for presenting a
petition from Kent which prayed for the restoration of the Book of
Common Prayer. This danger is, however, overcome by the ladies, who rise
in arms to defend their favourite poet.
"But when the beauteous Ladies came to know
That their dear Lovelace was endangered so,
Lovelace that thaw'd the most congealed breast,
He who lov'd best and them defended best,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd."
One of them challenged Marvell as to whether he had not been of the
poet's traducers, but he answered No!
"O No, mistake not, I reply'd, for I
In your defence or in his cause would die.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or my aid doth climb.
Him, bravest men and fairest nymphs approve,
His book in them finds Judgment, with you, Love."
Lovelace did not live to see the Restoration, but died in a mean lodging
near Shoe Lane in April 1658, and was buried in St. Bridget's Church.
Let us indulge the hope that the friends who occupied so many of the
introductory pages of Lovelace's _Lucasta_ occasionally enlivened the
solitude and relieved the distress of the poet whose praises they had
once sung with so much vigour. As Marvell was undoubtedly a friendly
man, and one who loved to be alone with his friends, and had never any
house of his own to keep up, living for the most part in hired lodgings,
it would be unkind to doubt that he at least did not forget Lovelace in
his poverty and depression of spirit.
In 1649 thirty-three poets combined to weep over the early grave of the
Lord Henry Hastings, the eldest son of the sixth Earl of Huntingdon, who
died of the smallpox in the twentieth year of his age. Not even this
plentiful discharge of poets' tears should rob the young nobleman of his
claim to be regarded as a fine example of the great learning,
accomplishments, and high spirits of the age. We can still produce the
thirty-three poets, but what young nobleman is there who can boast such
erudition as had rewarded the scorned delights and the laborious days of
this Lord Hastings? We have at least the satisfaction of knowing that
did such a one exist he probably would not die of the smallpox. Among
the poets who wept on this occasion were Herrick, Sir John Denham,
Andrew Marvell, and John Dryden, then a Westminster schoolboy, whose
description of the smallpox is as bad as the disease.
Marvell's verses begin very prettily and soon introduce a characteristic
touch:--
"Go, stand betwixt the Morning and the Flowers,
And ere they fall arrest the early showers,
Hastings is dead; and we disconsolate
With early tears must mourn his early fate."
In 1650 Marvell, then in his twenty-ninth year, went to live with Lord
Fairfax at Nunappleton House in Yorkshire, as tutor to the only child
and daughter of the house, Mary Fairfax, aged twelve years (born 30th
July 1638). This proved to be a great event in Marvell's life as a poet,
and it happened at an epoch in the distinguished career of the famous
Parliamentarian general
"Whose name in arms through Europe rings."
Lord Fairfax, though he had countenanced, if not approved, the trial
and deposition of the king, had resolutely held himself aloof from the
proceedings which, beginning on Saturday the 20th of January 1649,
terminated so dismally on Tuesday the 30th. The strange part played by
Lady Fairfax on the first day of the so-called trial (though it was no
greater a travesty of justice than many a real trial both before and
after) is one of the best-known stories in English history. There are
several versions of it. Having provided herself with a seat in a small
gallery in Westminster Hall, just above the heads of the judges, when
her husband's name was called out as one of the commissioners, the
intrepid lady (no Cavalier's dame, be it remembered, but a true blue
Presbyterian), a brave soldier's daughter, cried out, "Lord Fairfax is
not here; he will never sit among you. You do wrong to name him as a
sitting Commissioner." This is Rushworth's version, and he was present.
Clarendon, who was not present, being abroad at the time, reports the
words as, "He has more wit than to be here."
Later on in the day, when the President Bradshaw interrupted the king
and peremptorily bade him to answer the charges exhibited against him
"in the name of the Commons of England assembled, and of the people of
England," Lady Fairfax again rose to her feet and exclaimed, "It's a
lie! Not half the people. Where are they and their consents? Oliver
Cromwell is a traitor."
Lieutenant-Colonel Axtell, who during the trial was in command of a
regiment in Westminster and charged by his military superior, Lord
Fairfax himself, with the duty of maintaining order, hearing this
disturbance, went forward and told Lady Fairfax to hold her tongue,
sound advice which she appears to have taken. After the Restoration
Axtell was put to his trial as a "regicide." His defence, which was,
that as a soldier he obeyed his orders, and was no more guilty than his
general, Lord Fairfax, was not listened to, and he was sentenced to
death, a fate which he met like the brave man he was.
Although Fairfax did not immediately resign his command after the king's
death, from that moment he lost heart in the cause. Lady Fairfax, whose
loyalty to Charles may have been quickened by her dislike of Oliver, had
great influence with him, and it may well be that his conscience pricked
him. The rupture came in June 1650, when Charles's son made his
appearance in Scotland and his peace with the Presbyterians, subscribing
with inward emotions it would be unkind to attempt to describe the
Solemn League and Covenant, and attending services and listening to
sermons the length of which, at least, he never forgot. War was plainly
imminent between the two countries. The question was, who should begin?
Cromwell, who had hurried home from Ireland, Lambert, and Harrison were
all keen to strike the first blow. Fairfax felt a scruple, and in those
days scruples counted. Was there, he asked, a just cause for an invasion
of Scotland? A committee was appointed, consisting of the three warriors
above-named with St. John and Whitelock, to confer with the Lord-General
and satisfy him of the lawfulness of the undertaking. The six met, and
having first prayed--Oliver praying first--they proceeded to a
discussion which may be read at length in Whitelock's _Memorials_, vol.
iii. p. 207. The substance of their talk was as follows: Fairfax's
scruple proved to be that both they and the Scots had joined in the
Solemn League and Covenant, and that, therefore, until Scotland assumed
the offensive, there was no cause for an invasion. Cromwell's retort,
after a preliminary quibble, was practical enough. "War is inevitable.
Is it better to have it in the bowels of another's country or in one's
own? In one or other it must be." Fairfax's scruple, however, withstood
this battery, though it was strongly enforced by Harrison, who, in reply
to the Lord-General's question, "What was the warrant for the assumption
that Scotland meant to fall upon England?" inquired, if Scotland did not
mean to invade England, for whose benefit were levies being made and
soldiers enlisted.
Fairfax proved immovable. "Every man," said he, "must stand or fall by
his own conscience"; and as he offered to lay down his command, there
was nothing for it but to accept the resignation and appoint his
successor. This was speedily done, and on the 28th of June 1650 "Oliver
Cromwell, Esquire," was appointed Captain-General and Commander-in-chief
of all the forces. On 16th July Cromwell crossed the Tweed, and on the
3rd of September the Lord delivered Leslie into his hands at Dunbar.
It was in these circumstances that Lord Fairfax and his energetic lady
and only child went back to their Yorkshire home in the midsummer of
1650, taking Marvell with them to instruct the Lady Mary in the tongues.
Nunappleton House is in the Ainstey of York, a pleasant bit of country
bounded by the rivers Ouse, Wharfe, and Nidd. The modern traveller, as
his train rushes north, whilst shut up in his corridor-carriage with his
rug, his pipe, and his novel, passes at no great distance from the house
on the way between Selby and York. The old house, as it was in Marvell's
time, is thus described by Captain Markham, who had a print to help
him, in his delightful _Life of the Great Lord Fairfax_:--
"It was a picturesque brick mansion with stone copings and a high
steep roof, and consisted of a centre and two wings at right angles,
forming three sides of a square, facing to the north. The great hall
or gallery occupied the centre between the two wings. It was fifty
yards long, and was adorned with thirty shields in wood, painted with
the arms of the family. In the three rooms there were chimney-pieces
of delicate marble of various colours, and many fine portraits on the
walls. The central part of the house was surrounded by a cupola, and
clustering chimneys rose in the two wings. A noble park with splendid
oak-trees, and containing 300 head of deer, stretched away to the
north, while on the south side were the ruins of the old Nunnery, the
flower-garden, and the low meadows called _ings_ extending to the
banks of the Wharfe. In this flower-garden the General took especial
delight. The flowers were planted in masses, tulips, pinks, and
roses, each in separate beds, which were cut into the shape of forts
with five bastions. General Lambert, whom Fairfax had reared as a
soldier, also loved his flowers, and excelled both in cultivating
them and in painting them from Nature. Lord Fairfax only went to
Denton, the favourite seat of his grandfather, when the floods were
out over the _ings_ at Nunappleton, and he also occasionally resorted
to his house at Bishop Hill in York."[31:1]
In this garden the muse of Andrew Marvell blossomed like the
cherry-tree.
Lord Fairfax, though furious in war, and badly wounded in many a fierce
engagement, was, when otherwise occupied, a man of quiet literary
tastes, and a good bit of a collector and _virtuoso_. Some of the rare
books and manuscripts he had around him at Nunappleton are now in the
Bodleian, the treasures of which he had protected in troubled times. He
loved to handle medals and coins, and knew the points of old
engravings. He wrote a history of the Christian Church down to our own
ill-conducted Reformation, and composed a complete metrical version of
the Psalms of David and of the Song of Solomon. These and many other
productions, which he characterised as "The Employment of my Solitude,"
still remain in his own handwriting. Amongst them, Yorkshire men will
hear with pleasure, is a "Treatise on the breeding of the Horse."
Of the quality of his wife we have already had a touch. She was one of
the four daughters of Lord Vere of Tilbury, who came of a fine fighting
family, and whose daughters had a roughish bringing-up, chiefly in the
Netherlands. None of the daughters were reckoned beautiful, either in
face or figure, and it may well be that Lady Fairfax had something about
her of the old campaigner; but of her courage, sincerity, and goodness
there can be no question. Her loyalty was no sickly fruit of "Church
Principles," for her strong intelligence rejected scornfully the slavish
doctrines, alien to our political constitution, of divine right and
passive obedience; but a loyalty, none the less, it was, of a very
valuable kind. She was fond of argument, and with Lady Fairfax at
Nunappleton there was never likely to be any dearth of sensible talk and
lively reminiscence. The tragedy of the 30th of January could never be
forgotten, and it is possible that Marvell's most famous verses, so
nobly descriptive of the demeanour of the king on that memorable
occasion, derived their inspiration from discourse at Nunappleton.
Of the Lady Mary, aged twelve, we have no direct testimony. When she
grew up and had her portrait painted she stands revealed as a stout
young woman with a plain good-natured face. The poor soul needed all
the good-nature heaven had bestowed upon her, for she had to bear the
misery and disgrace which were the inevitable marriage-portion of the
woman whose ill-luck it was to become the wife of George Villiers,
second Duke of Buckingham. Somebody seems to have taught her philosophy,
for she bore her misfortunes as best became a great lady, living as one
who had sorrow but no grievance. The duke died in 1688; she lived on
till 1704. She was ever a good friend to another ill-used solitary wife,
Catherine of Braganza. Marvell had every reason to be proud of his
pupil.
Beside the actual inmates of the great house, the whole countryside
swarmed with Fairfaxes. At the Rectory of Bolton Percy was the late
Lord-General's uncle, Henry Fairfax, and his two sons, Henry, who
succeeded to the title, and the better-known Brian, the biographer of
the Duke of Buckingham. At Stenton, four miles off, lived the widow of
the gallant Sir William Fairfax, who died, covered with wounds, in 1644
before Montgomery Castle. There were two sons and two daughters at
Stenton, whilst Charles Fairfax, another uncle, and the lawyer and
genealogist of the family, lived at no great distance with no less than
fourteen children. There were also sisters of Lord Fairfax, with
families of their own, all settled in the same part of the county.
Such were the agreeable surroundings of our poet for two years,
1650-1652. I must leave it to the imaginations of my readers to fill up
the picture, for excepting the poems, which we may safely assume were
written at Nunappleton House, and--who can doubt it?--read aloud to its
inmates, there is nothing more to be said.
Before considering the Nunappleton poetry, a word must be got in of
bibliography. College exercises and complimentary verses excepted,
Marvell printed none of his verse under his own name in his lifetime. So
far as his themes were political there is no need to wonder at this.
Indeed, the wonder is how, despite their anonymity, their author kept
his ears; but why the Nunappleton verse should have remained in
manuscript for more than thirty years is hard to explain.
Until Pope took his muse to market, poetry, apart from the drama, had no
direct commercial value, or one too small to be ranked as a motive for
publication. None the less, the age loved distinction and appreciated
wit, and to be known as a poet whose verses "numbered good intellects"
was to gain the _entree_ to the society of men both of intellect and
fashion, and also, not infrequently, snug berths in the public service,
and secretaryships to foreign missions and embassies. Thus there was
always, in addition to natural vanity, a strong motive for a
seventeenth-century poet to publish his poems. To-day one would hesitate
to recommend a young man who wanted to get on in the world to publish a
volume of verse; but the age of "wit" and "parts" is over.
It was not till 1681--three years after Marvell's death--that the small
folio appeared with a fine portrait, still dear to the collector, which
contains for the first time what may be called the "garden-poetry" of
our author, together with some specimens of his political and satirical
versification.
Marvell's most famous poem--_The Ode upon Cromwell's Return from
Ireland_--is not included in the 1681 volume, and remained in manuscript
until 1776, as also did the poem upon Cromwell's death.
The remainder of the political poems, which had made their first
appearance as broadsheets, were reprinted after the Revolution in the
well-known _Collection of Poems on Affairs of State_.[35:1] These verses
were never owned by Marvell, and it is probable that some of them,
though attributed to him, are not his at all. We have only tradition to
go by. In the case of political satires, squibs, epigrams, rough popular
occasional rhymes flung off both in haste and heat to be sold with old
ballads in the market-place, we need not seek for better evidence than
tradition, which indeed is often the only external evidence we have for
the authorship of much more important things.
Now to return to the Nunappleton poetry.
In a poem of 776 lines Marvell tells the story and describes the charms
of the house which Lord Fairfax built for himself during the war, and to
which, as just narrated, he retired in the summer of 1650. The story is
only too familiar a one, being writ large over many a fine property.
Appleton House was Church loot. In the time of Henry, "the majestic lord
that burst the bonds of Rome," the old house at Nunappleton was a
Cistercian nunnery, a religious house. In 1542 the community was
suppressed and its property appropriated by the great-grandfather of the
Lord-General--one Sir Thomas Fairfax. The religious buildings were
pulled down and a new secular house rose in their place. In these bare
and sordid facts there is not much room for poetry, but there is a story
thrown in. Shortly before 1518 a Yorkshire heiress, bearing the
unromantic name of Isabella Thwaites, was living in the Cistercian
abbey, under the guardianship of the abbess, the Lady Anna Langton.
Property under the care of the Church is always supposed to be in
danger, and the Lady Anna was freely credited with the desire to make a
nun of her ward, and so keep her broad acres in Wharfedale and her
messuages in York for the use of Mother Church. None the less, the young
lady was allowed to go about and visit her neighbours, and whilst so
doing she fell in love with Sir William Fairfax, or he fell in love with
her or with her estates. Thereupon, so the story proceeds, the abbess
kept her ward a close prisoner within the nunnery walls. Legal
proceedings were taken, but in the end the privacy of the nunnery was
invaded, and Miss Thwaites was abducted and married to Sir William
Fairfax at the church of Bolton Percy. The lady abbess had to submit to
_vis major_, but worse days were in front of her, for she lived on to
see the nunnery itself despoiled, and the fair domains she had during a
long life preserved and maintained for religious uses handed over to the
son of her former ward, Isabella Thwaites.
Our poet begins by referring to the modest dimensions of the house, and
the natural charms of its surroundings:--
"The house was built upon the place,
Only as for a mark of grace,
And for an inn to entertain
Its Lord awhile, but not remain.
Him Bishop's-hill or Denton may,
Or Billborow, better hold than they:
But Nature here hath been so free,
As if she said, 'Leave this to me.'
Art would more neatly have defac'd
What she had laid so sweetly waste
In fragrant gardens, shady woods,
Deep meadows, and transparent floods."
And then starts the story:--
"While, with slow eyes, we these survey,
And on each pleasant footstep stay,
We opportunely may relate
The progress of this house's fate.
A nunnery first gave it birth,
(For virgin buildings oft brought forth)
And all that neighbour-ruin shows
The quarries whence this dwelling rose.
Near to this gloomy cloister's gates,
There dwelt the blooming virgin Thwaites,
Fair beyond measure, and an heir,
Which might deformity make fair;
And oft she spent the summer's suns
Discoursing with the subtle Nuns,
Whence, in these words, one to her weav'd,
As 'twere by chance, thoughts long conceiv'd:
'Within this holy leisure, we
Live innocently, as you see.
These walls restrain the world without,
But hedge our liberty about;
These bars inclose that wilder den
Of those wild creatures, called men,
The cloister outward shuts its gates,
And, from us, locks on them the grates.
Here we, in shining armour white,
Like virgin amazons do fight,
And our chaste lamps we hourly trim,
Lest the great Bridegroom find them dim.
Our orient breaths perfumed are
With incense of incessant prayer;
And holy-water of our tears
Most strangely our complexion clears;
Not tears of grief, but such as those
With which calm pleasure overflows;
Or pity, when we look on you
That live without this happy vow.
How should we grieve that must be seen
Each one a spouse, and each a queen,
And can in heaven hence behold
Our brighter robes and crowns of gold!
When we have prayed all our beads,
Some one the holy Legend reads,
While all the rest with needles paint
The face and graces of the Saint;
Some of your features, as we sewed,
Through every shrine should be bestowed,
And in one beauty we would take
Enough a thousand Saints to make.
And (for I dare not quench the fire
That me does for your good inspire)
'Twere sacrilege a man to admit
To holy things for heaven fit.
I see the angels in a crown
On you the lilies showering down;
And round about you glory breaks,
That something more than human speaks.
All beauty when at such a height,
Is so already consecrate.
Fairfax I know, and long ere this
Have marked the youth, and what he is;
But can he such a rival seem,
For whom you heaven should disesteem?
Ah, no! and 'twould more honour prove
He your devoto were than Love.
Here live beloved and obeyed,
Each one your sister, each your maid,
And, if our rule seem strictly penned,
The rule itself to you shall bend.
Our Abbess, too, now far in age,
Doth your succession near presage.
How soft the yoke on us would lie,
Might such fair hands as yours it tie!
Your voice, the sweetest of the choir,
Shall draw heaven nearer, raise us higher,
And your example, if our head,
Will soon us to perfection lead.
Those virtues to us all so dear,
Will straight grow sanctity when here;
And that, once sprung, increase so fast,
Till miracles it work at last.'"
What reply was given by the heiress to these arguments, and others of a
still more seductive hue, the poet does not tell, but turns to the eager
lover who asks, What should he do? He hints that a nunnery is no place
for a virtuous maid, and that the nuns (unlike himself, I hope) are only
thinking of her property. He complains that though the Court has
authorised him to use either peace or force, the nuns still stand upon
their guard.
"Ill-counselled women, do you know
Whom you resist or what you do?"
Using a most remarkable poetic licence, the poet refers to the fact that
this barred-out lover is to be the progenitor of the great Lord Fairfax.
"Is not this he, whose offspring fierce
Shall fight through all the universe;
And with successive valour try
France, Poland, either Germany,
Till one, as long since prophesied,
His horse through conquered Britain ride?"
The lover determines to take the place by assault. It was not a very
heroic enterprise, as Marvell describes it.
"Some to the breach, against their foes,
Their wooden Saints in vain oppose;
Another bolder, stands at push,
With their old holy-water brush,
While the disjointed Abbess threads
The jingling chain-shot of her beads;
But their loud'st cannon were their lungs,
And sharpest weapons were their tongues.
But waving these aside like flies,
Young Fairfax through the wall does rise.
Then the unfrequented vault appeared,
And superstition, vainly feared;
The relicks false were set to view;
Only the jewels there were true,
And truly bright and holy Thwaites,
That weeping at the altar waits.
But the glad youth away her bears,
And to the Nuns bequeathes her tears,
Who guiltily their prize bemoan,
Like gypsies who a child have stol'n."
The poet then goes on to glorify the results of this union and to
describe happy days spent at Nunappleton by the descendants of Isabella
Thwaites.
"At the demolishing, this seat
To Fairfax fell, as by escheat;
And what both nuns and founders willed,
'Tis likely better thus fulfilled.
For if the virgin proved not theirs,
The cloister yet remained hers;
Though many a nun there made her vow,
'Twas no religious house till now.
From that blest bed the hero came
Whom France and Poland yet does fame;
Who, when retired here to peace,
His warlike studies could not cease;
But laid these gardens out, in sport,
In the just figure of a fort,
And with five bastions it did fence,
As aiming one for every sense.
When in the east the morning ray
Hangs out the colours of the day,
The bee through these known alleys hums,
Beating the dian with its drums.
Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise,
Their silken ensigns each displays,
And dries its pan, yet dank with dew,
And fills its flask with odours new.
These as their Governor goes by
In fragrant volleys they let fly,
And to salute their Governess
Again as great a charge they press:
None for the virgin nymph; for she
Seems with the flowers a flower to be.
And think so still! though not compare
With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair!
Well shot, ye firemen! Oh, how sweet
And round your equal fires do meet,
Whose shrill report no ear can tell,
But echoes to the eye and smell!
See how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand displayed;
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink and rose.
But when the vigilant patrol
Of stars walk round about the pole,
Their leaves, which to the stalks are curled,
Seem to their staves the ensigns furled.
Then in some flower's beloved hut,
Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
And sleeps so too, but, if once stirred,
She runs you through, nor asks the word.
Oh, thou, that dear and happy isle,
The garden of the world erewhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas,
Which heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With watery, if not flaming sword,--
What luckless apple did we taste,
To make us mortal, and thee waste?
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore,
When gardens only had their towers
And all the garrisons were flowers,
When roses only arms might bear,
And men did rosy garlands wear?
Tulips, in several colours barred,
Were then the Switzers of our guard;
The gardener had the soldier's place,
And his more gentle forts did trace;
The nursery of all things green
Was then the only magazine;
The winter quarters were the stoves,
Where he the tender plants removes.
But war all this doth overgrow:
We ordnance plant, and powder sow.
The arching boughs unite between
The columns of the temple green,
And underneath the winged quires
Echo about their tuned fires.
The nightingale does here make choice
To sing the trials of her voice;
Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns
With music high the squatted thorns;
But highest oaks stoop down to hear,
And listening elders prick the ear;
The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
Within the skin its shrunken claws.
But I have for my music found
A sadder, yet more pleasing sound;
The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced
With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,
Yet always, for some cause unknown,
Sad pair, unto the elms they moan.
O why should such a couple mourn,
That in so equal flames do burn!
Then as I careless on the bed
Of gelid strawberries do tread,
And through the hazels thick espy
The hatching throstle's shining eye,
The heron, from the ash's top,
The eldest of its young lets drop,
As if it stork-like did pretend
That tribute to its lord to send.
Thus I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer;
And little now to make me, wants,
Or of the fowls, or of the plants;
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already I begin to call
In their most learn'd original,
And where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines,
And more attentive there doth sit
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit,
No leaf does tremble in the wind,
Which I returning cannot find.
One of these scattered Sibyls' leaves
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves,
And in one history consumes,
Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes;
What Rome, Greece, Palestine e'er said,
I in this light mosaic read.
Thrice happy he, who, not mistook,
Hath read in Nature's mystic book!
And see how chance's better wit
Could with a mask my studies hit!
The oak-leaves me embroider all,
Between which caterpillars crawl;
And ivy, with familiar trails,
Me licks and clasps, and curls and hales.
Under this Attic cope I move,
Like some great prelate of the grove;
Then, languishing with ease, I toss
On pallets swoln of velvet moss,
While the wind, cooling through the boughs,
Flatters with air my panting brows.
Thanks for your rest, ye mossy banks,
And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks,
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head!
How safe, methinks, and strong behind
These trees, have I encamped my mind,
Where beauty, aiming at the heart,
Bends in some tree its useless dart,
And where the world no certain shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not,
But I on it securely play
And gall its horsemen all the day.
Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines
Curl me about, ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place!
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through!
Oh what a pleasure 'tis to hedge
My temples here with heavy sedge,
Abandoning my lazy side,
Stretched as a bank unto the tide,
Or to suspend my sliding foot
On the osier's undermined root,
And in its branches tough to hang,
While at my lines the fishes twang?
But now away, my hooks, my quills,
And angles, idle utensils!
The young MARIA walks to-night;
'Tis she that to these gardens gave
That wondrous beauty which they have;
She straightness on the woods bestows;
To her the meadow sweetness owes;
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal pure, but only she,
She yet more pure, sweet, straight, and fair
Than gardens, woods, meads, rivers are.
This 'tis to have been from the first
In a domestic heaven nursed,
Under the discipline severe
Of FAIRFAX, and the starry VERE;
Where not one object can come nigh
But pure, and spotless as the eye,
And goodness doth itself entail
On females, if there want a male."
This poem, having a biographical value, I have quoted at, perhaps, too
great length. Other poems of this garden-period of Marvell's life are
better known. His own English version of his Latin poem _Hortus_
contains lovely stanzas:--
"How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays;
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close,
To weave the garlands of Repose!
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow;
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.
No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
What wond'rous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;--
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;--
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade."[46:1]
Well known as are Marvell's lines to his Coy Mistress, I have not the
heart to omit them, so eminently characteristic are they of his style
and humour:--
"Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Should'st rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near,
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor in thy marble vault shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now, therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now, let us sport us while we may;
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt power!
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
Through the iron gates of life!
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run."
Mr. Aitken's valuable edition of Marvell's poems and satires can now be
had of all booksellers for two shillings,[47:1] and with these volumes
in his possession the judicious reader will be able to supply his own
reflections whilst life beneath the sun is still his. Poetry is a
personal matter. The very canons of criticism are themselves literature.
If we like the _Ars Poetica_, it is because we enjoy reading Horace.
FOOTNOTES:
[20:1] For an account of Flecknoe, see Southey's _Omniana_, i. 105. Lamb
placed some fine lines of Flecknoe's at the beginning of the Essay _A
Quakers' Meeting_.
[24:1] Grosart, vol. iii. p. 175.
[24:2] _See_ preface to _Religio Laici_, Scott's _Dryden_, vol. x. p.
27.
[24:3] Jeremy Collier in his _Historical Dictionary_ (1705) describes
Marvell, to whom he allows more space (though it is but a few lines)
than he does to Shakespeare, "as to his opinion he was a dissenter." In
Collier's opinion Marvell may have been no better than a dissenter, but
in fact he was a Churchman all his life, and it was Collier who lived to
become a non-juror and a dissenter, and a schismatical bishop to boot.
[31:1] _Life of Lord Fairfax_, by C.R. Markham (1870), p. 365.
[35:1] The fifth edition is dated 1703.
[46:1] Many a reader has made his first acquaintance with Marvell on
reading these lines in the _Essays of Elia_ (_The Old Benchers of the
Inner Temple_).
[47:1] _Poems and Satires of Andrew Marvell_, 2 vols. Routledge, 1905.