riots now;--that then, they acted for their country,--now, they talk
about it! Alas! the days are passed when you could tell an Englishman
from every other man, even by his gait, keeping the middle of the road,
and straight on, as one who knew himself, and made others know him. I am
sure a party of roundheads, in their sober coats, high hats, and heavy
boots, would have walked up Highgate Hill to visit Master Andrew Marvel,
with a different air from the young men of our own time,--or of their
own time, I should say,--for _my_ time is past, and _yours_ is passing."

That was quite true; but there is no reason, we thought, why we should
not look cheerfully towards the future, and pray that it may be a bright
world for others, if not for ourselves;--the greater our enjoyment in
the contemplation of the happiness of our fellow-creatures, the nearer
we approach God.

It was too damp for the old lady to venture into the garden; and sweet
and gentle as she was, both in mind and manner, we were glad to be
alone. How pretty and peaceful the house looks from this spot! The
snowdrops were quite up, and the yellow and purple tips of the crocuses
bursting through the ground in all directions. This, then, was the
garden the poet loved so well, and to which he alludes so charmingly in
his poem, where the nymph complains of the death of her fawn--

"I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness."

The garden seems in nothing changed; in fact, the entire appearance of
the place is what it was in those glorious days when inhabited by the
truest genius and the most unflinching patriot that ever sprang from the
sterling stuff that Englishmen were made of in those wonder-working
times. The genius of Andrew Marvel was as varied as it was
remarkable;--not only was he a tender and exquisite poet, but entitled
to stand _facile princeps_ as an incorruptible patriot, the best of
controversialists, and the leading prose wit of England. We have always
considered his as the first of the "sprightly runnings" of that
brilliant stream of wit, which will carry with it to the latent
posterity the names of Swift, Steele, and Addison. Before Marvel's time,
to be witty was to be strained, forced, and conceited; from him--whose
memory consecrates that cottage--wit came sparkling forth, untouched by
baser matter. It was worthy of him; its main feature was an open
clea