wyer-member, much lashed by Marvell's bitter pen. Sharp had also taken
part in the quarrel with the Dissenters, and is reported to have been
very much opposed to any Hull monument to Marvell. Captain Thompson says
"the Epitaph which the Town of Hull caused to be erected to Marvell's
memory was torn down by the Zealots of the King's party." There is no
record of this occurrence.

There are several portraits of Marvell in existence--one now being in
the National Portrait Gallery. A modern statue in marble adorns the Town
Hall of Hull.

FOOTNOTES:

[211:1] In reading the early volumes of the _Parliamentary History_ the
question has to be asked, What authority is there for the reports of
speeches? In Charles the Second's time some of the speakers, both in the
Lords and Commons, evidently communicated their orations to the press.

[215:1] Lord Mayor, 1667.

[220:1] See _Marvell's Ghost_, in _Poems on Affairs of State_.

[223:1] The cottage at Highgate, long called 'Marvell's Cottage,' has
now disappeared. Several of Marvell's letters were written from
Highgate.

CHAPTER VIII

WORK AS A MAN OF LETTERS

Marvell's work as a man of letters easily divides itself into the
inevitable three parts. _First_, as a poet properly so called; _Second_,
as a political satirist using rhyme; and _Third_, as a writer of prose.

Upon Marvell's work as a poet properly so called that curious, floating,
ever-changing population to whom it is convenient to refer as "the
reading public," had no opportunity of forming any real opinion until
after the poet's death, namely, when the small folio of 1681 made its
appearance. This volume, although not containing the _Horatian Ode upon
Cromwell's Return from Ireland_ or the lines upon Cromwell's death, did
contain, saving these exceptions, all the best of Marvell's verse.

How this poetry was received, to whom and to how many it gave pleasure,
we have not the means of knowing. The book, like all other good books,
had to take its chance. Good poetry is never exactly unpopular--its
difficulty is to get a hearing, to secure a _vogue_. I feel certain that
from 1681 onwards many ingenuous souls read _Eyes and Tears_, _The
Bermudas_, _The Nymph complaining for the Death of her Fawn_, _To his
Coy Mistress_, _Young Love_, and _The Garden_ with pure delight. In 1699
the poet Pomfret, of whose _Choice_ Dr. Johnson said in 1780, "perhaps
no composition in our language has been oftener perused,"