Augustine Birrell

“ If men do but compute how charming an efficacy one word, and more, one good action has from a superior upon those under him, it can scarce be reckon’d how powerful a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour of humanity in government, go on daily gaining upon the affections of his people. There is not any privilege so dear, but it may be extorted from subjects by good usage, and by keeping them alwayes up in their good humour. I will not say what one prince may compass within his own time, or what a second, though surely much may be done ”

“ With Parker’s thunders and threats of the authority of princes and states, Marvell deals more in the mood of a statesman than of a philosopher, more as a man of affairs than as a jurist. He deplores the ferocity of Parker’s tone and that of a certain number of the clergy.
“Why is it,” he asks, “that this kind of clergy should always be and have been for the most precipitate, brutish, and sanguinary counsels? The former Civil War cannot make them wise, nor his Majesty’s happy return good-natured, but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes. ”

“ But if God take the son himself, but spare the father, shall we say that He is a bloody God?199 He that gave His own son, may He not take ours? It is pride that makes a rebel; and nothing but the over-weening of ourselves and our own things that raises us against Divine Providence. Whereas Abraham’s obedience was better than sacrifice. And if God please to accept both, it is indeed a farther tryal, but a greater honour. I could say over upon this beaten occasion most of those lessons of morality and religion which have been so often repeated, and are as soon forgotten. ”

“ The fall, long pending, of Clarendon immediately followed the peace. Men’s tempers were furious or sullen. Hyde had no more bitter, no more cruel enemy than Marvell. Why this was has not been discovered, but there was nothing too bad for Marvell not to believe of any member of Clarendon’s household. All the scandals, and they were many and horrible, relating to Clarendon and his daughter, the Duchess of York, find a place in Marvell’s satires and epigrams. ”

“ By this long haunting so together, they are grown too so familiar among themselves, that all reverence of their own Assembly is lost, that they live together not like Parliament men, but like so many good fellows met together in a publick house to make merry. ”

“ As a satirist Marvell had, if he wanted them, many models of style, but he really needed none, for he just wrote down in rough-and-ready rhyme whatever his head or his spleen suggested to his fancy. Every now and again there is a noble outburst of feeling, and a couplet of great felicity. I confess to taking great pleasure in Marvell’s satires.
As a prose writer Marvell has many merits and one great fault. He has fire and fancy and was the owner and master of a precise vocabulary well fitted to clothe and set forth a well-reasoned and lofty argument. ”

“ No money is to be levied but by the common consent. No man is for life, limb, goods, or liberty, at the Sovereign’s discretion: but we have the same right (modestly understood) in our propriety that the prince hath in his regality: and in all cases where the King is concerned, we have our just remedy as against any private person of the neighbourhood, in the Courts of Westminster Hall or in the High Court of Parliament. His very Prerogative is no more than what the Law has determined. ”

“ I know that the very sight of those who have been witnesses of our better fortune, doth but serve to reinforce a calamity. I know the contagion of grief and infection of tears, and especially when it runs in a blood. And I myself could sooner imitate than blame those innocent relentings of nature, so that they spring from tenderness only and humanity, not from an implacable sorrow. ”

“ If you lash the age, you do so presumably for the benefit of the age. It is very hard to transmit even a fierce 231and genuine indignation from one age to another. Marvell’s satires were too hastily composed, too roughly constructed, too redolent of the occasion, to enter into the kingdom of poetry. To the careful and character-loving reader of history, particularly if he chance to have a feeling for the House of Commons, not merely as an institution, but as a place of resort, Marvell’s satirical poems must always be intensely interesting. ”

“ The Duke of York, the bishops, and the rest of the party, have entered their protests, on the first day’s debate, against it. Is not this fine work? This Bill must come down to us. It is my opinion that Lauderdale at one ear talks to the King of Monmouth, and Buckingham at the other of a new Queen. It is also my opinion that the King was never since his coming in, nay, all things considered, no King since the Conquest, so absolutely powerful at home, as he is at the present; nor any Parliament, or places, so certainly and constantly supplyed with men of the same temper. ”

“ That tenderness of conscience and scandal are ignorance, pride, and obstinacy. He saith, the Nonconformists should communicate with him till they have clear evidence that it is evil. This is a civil way indeed of gaining the question, to perswade men that are unsatisfied, to be satisfied till they be dissatisfied. He threatens, he rails, he jeers them, if it were possible, out of all their consciences and honesty; and finding that will not do, he calls out the magistrate, tells him these men are not fit to live; there can be no security of government while they are in being. ”

“ During Marvell’s absence war had been declared with the Dutch. It was never difficult to go to war with the Dutch. The king was always in want of money, and as no proper check existed over war supplies, he took what he wanted out of them. The merchants on ’Change desired war, saying that the trade of the world was too little for both England and Holland, and that one or the other “must down.” The English manufacturers, who felt the sting of their Dutch competitors, were always in favour of war. Then the growing insolence of the Dutch in the Indies was not to be borne. ”

“ Man may not be a religious animal, but he recognises and venerates the spirit of religion whenever he perceives it, and it is a spirit which is apt to evaporate amidst the strife of rival wits. Who can doubt the sincerity of Milton, when he exclaimed with the sad prophet Jeremy, “Woe is me my Mother that thou hast borne me a man of strife and contention.” ”

“ Entire self-possession, dignity, criticism of a great man and a strange career by one well entitled to criticise, are among the chief characteristics of this noble poem. It is infinitely refreshing, when reading and thinking about Cromwell, to get as far away as possible from the fanatic’s scream and the fury of the bigot, whether of the school of Laud or Hobbes. Andrew Marvell knew Oliver Cromwell alive, and gazed on his features as he lay dead—he knew his ambition, his greatness, his power, and where that power lay. ”

“ A true poet can, however, never be defiled by the rough usage of the populace.
As a politician Marvell lives in the old-fashioned 2vivacious history-books (which if they die out, as they show some signs of doing, will carry with them half the historic sense of the nation) as the hero of an anecdote of an unsuccessful attempt made upon his political virtue by a minister of the Crown, as a rare type of an inflexible patriot, and as the last member of the House of Commons who was content to take wages from, instead of contributing to the support of, his constituents. ”

“ They have all got their pardons, for Monmouth’s sake; but it is an act of great scandal. The King of France is at Dunkirke. We have no fleet out, though we gave the Subsidy Bill, valued at eight hundred thousand pounds, for that purpose. I believe, indeed, he will attempt nothing on us, but leave us to dy a natural death. For indeed never had poor nation so many complicated, mortal, incurable, diseases. You know the Dutchess of York is dead. All gave her for a Papist. I think it will be my lot to go on an honest fair employment into Ireland. Some have smelt the court of Rome at that distance. ”

“ There are few soveraign princes so abridged, but that, if they be not contented, they may envy their own fortune. But the modester question (if men will needs be medling with matters above them) would be, how far it is advisable for a prince to exert and push the rigour of that power which no man can deny him; for princes, as they derive the right of succession from their ancestors, so they inherit from that ancient and illustrious extraction a generosity that runs in the blood above the allay of the rest of mankind. ”

“ The tears of a family may flow together like those little drops that compact the rainbow, and if they be placed with the same advantage towards Heaven as those are to the sun, they too have their splendour; and like that bow, while they unbend into seasonable showers, yet they promise, that there shall not be a second flood. But the dissoluteness of grief, the prodigality of sorrow, is neither to be indulged in a man’s self, nor complyed with in others. ”

“ The wealth of a shepherd depends upon the multitude of his flock, the goodness of their pasture, and the quietness of their feeding; and princes, whose dominion over mankind resembles in some measure that of men over other creatures, cannot expect any considerable increase to themselves, if by continual terrour they amaze, shatter, and hare their people, driving them into woods, and running them upon precipices. ”

“ The thing Parker hated most in the world was a Tender Conscience. He protests against the weakness which is content with passing penal laws, but does not see them carried out for fear of wounding these trumpery tender consciences. “Most men’s minds or consciences are weak, silly and ignorant things, acted by fond and absurd principles and imposed upon by their vices and their passions.” (7.) “However, if the obligation of laws must yield to that of a tender conscience, how impregnably is every man that has a mind to disobey armed against all the commands of his superiors. ”

“ 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 entrée 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 ”

“ Clifford was a zealous Roman, Arlington a cautious one, Buckingham a free-thinker and mocker, friendly to France and on good terms with the more advanced English sectaries; Ashley made no pretence to be a Christian, but favoured philosophic toleration; whilst Lauderdale, one of the most learned ministers that ever sat in council (so Ranke says1) , was, as a matter of profession, a Presbyterian, but in reality a man wholly and slavishly devoted to the king’s interests, and prepared at any moment to pour into the kingdom soldiers from Scotland to purge or suppress all Free Institutions. ”

“ You, sir, that have all these things in your memory, and the clearness of whose judgment is not to be obscured by any greater interposition, should be exemplary to others in your own practice. ’Tis true, it is an hard task to learn and teach at the same time. And, where yourselves are the experiment, it is as if a man should dissect his own body, and read the anatomy lecture. ”

“ The only incident we know of Marvell’s undergraduate days is remarkable enough, for, boy though he was, he seems, like the Gibbon of a later day, to have suddenly become a Roman Catholic. This occurrence may serve to remind us how, during Marvell’s time at Trinity, the University of Cambridge (ever the precursor in thought-movements) had a Catholic revival of her own, akin to that one which two hundred years afterwards happened at Oxford, and has left so much agreeable literature behind it. ”

“ But if nevertheless any worthy person chance to carry the election, some mercenary or corrupt sheriff makes a double return, and so the cause is handed to the Committee of elections, who ask no better, but are ready to adopt his adversary into the House if he be not legitimate. And if the gentleman agrieved seek his remedy against the sheriff in Westminster-Hall, and the proofs be so palpable, that the King’s Bench cannot invent how to do him injustice, yet the major part of the twelve judges shall upon better consideration vacate the sheriff’s fine and reverse the judgement ”