Scott, one of the great churches in the
north of England.
The Rev. Andrew Marvell made his mark upon Hull. Mr. Grosart, who lacked
nothing but the curb upon a too exuberant vocabulary, a little less
enthusiasm and a great deal more discretion, to be a model editor, tells
us in his invaluable edition of _The Complete Works in Verse and Prose
of Andrew Marvell, M.P._,[8:1] that he had read a number of the elder
Marvell's manuscripts, consisting of sermons and miscellaneous papers,
from which Mr. Grosart proceeds:--
"I gather three things.
"(1) That he was a man of a very brave, fearlessly outspoken
character. Some of his practical applications in his sermons before
the Magistrates are daring in their directness of reproof, and
melting in their wistfulness of entreaty.
"(2) That he was a well-read man. His Sermons are as full of
classical and patristic allusions and pat sayings from the most
occult literatures as even Bishop Andrewes.
"(3) That he was a man of tireless activity. Besides the two offices
named, he became head of one of the Great Hospitals of the Town
(Charter House), and in an address to the Governors placed before
them a prescient and statesmanlike plan for the better management of
its revenues, and for the foundation of a Free Public Library to be
accessible to all."
When at a later day, and in the midst of a fierce controversy, Andrew
Marvell wrote of the clergy as "the reserve of our Christianity," he
doubtless had such men as his father in his mind and memory.
It was at the old Grammar School of Hull, and with his father as his
_Orbilius_, that Marvell was initiated into the mysteries of the Latin
grammar, and was, as he tells us, put to his
"Montibus, inquit, erunt; et erant submontibus illis;
Risit Atlantiades; et me mihi, perfide, prodis?
Me mihi prodis? ait.
"For as I remember this scanning was a liberal art that we learn'd at
Grammar School, and to scan verses as he does the Author's prose
before we did or were obliged to understand them."[8:2]
Irrational methods have often amazingly good results, and the Hull
Grammar School provided its head-master's only son with the rudiments of
learning, thus enabling him to become in after years what John Milton
himself, the author of that terrible _Treatise on Education_ addressed
to Mr. Hartlibb, affirmed Andrew Marvell to be in a written testimonial,
"a scholar, and
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