"Thirdly, My Lord Lauderdale” will undertake it for me; and I should be loath, by any act of mine, he should forfeit the credit he has with you.

"If you desire more instances of my zeal, I have them for you. For example, I have converted my natural sons from popery, and I may say without vanity, it was my own work, so much the more =peculiarly mine than the begetting them. 'Twould do one's heart good to hear how prettily George can read already in the psalter. They are all fine children, God bless 'em, and so like me in their understandings! But, as I was saying, I have, to please you, given a pension to your favourite, My Lord Lauderdale; not so much that I thought he wanted it, as that you would take it kindly. I have mado Carwell, Duchess of Portsmouth, and married her sister to the Earl of Pembroke. I have, at my brother's request, sent my Lord Inchiquin into Barbary, to settle the Protestant religion among the Moors, and an English interest at Tangier. I have made Crew, Bishop of Durham, and at the first word of my Lady Portsmouth, Prideaux, Bishop of Chichester. I know not, for my part, what factious men would have; but this I am sure of, my

BURNETT, who was acquainted with Lauderdale, says, “I knew him parIticularly. He made an ill appearance: he was very big his hair red, hanging odly about him; his tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that he talked to; his whole manner was rough and boisterous, and unfit for a court. He was very learned, not only in Latin, in which he was a master, but in Greek and Hebrew. He had read a great deal of divinity, and almost all the historians, ancient and modern, so that he had great mate rials. He had with these an extraordinary memory, and a copious but unpolished expression; abject to those he saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried him often to fits like madness, in which he had no temper. If he took a thing wrong, it was impossible to convince him, and he would swear he would never be of another mind: he was to be left alone: and perhaps he would have forgot what he › had said, and come about of his own accord. He was the coldest friend, and the most violent enemy I ever knew; and I felt it too much not to know it. He at first seemed to despise wealth; but he delivered himself up afterwards to luxury and sensuality; and by that means he ran into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was necessary to support it. In his long imprisonment he had great impressions of religion on his mind; but he wore these out so entirely, that scarce any trace of them was left. His great experience in affairs, his ready compliance with every thing that he thought would please the King, and his bold offering at the most desperate counsels, gained him such an interest in the King, that no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, could ever shake it, till a decay of strength and understanding forced 1 him to let go his hold. He was, in his principles, much against popery and arbitrary government; and yet, by a fatal train of passions and interests, he made way for the former, and had almost established the latter. And, where some by a smooth deportment made the first beginnings of tyranny less dis ceruable and unacceptable, he, by the fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity of his ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an inquisition than the legality of justice."

predecessors never did any thing like this, to gain the good will of their subjects. So much for your religion, and now for your property. My behaviour to the bankers is a public instance; and the proceedings. between Mrs. Hyde und Mrs. Sutton, for private ones, are such convincing evidences, that it will be needless to say any more to it.

"I must now acquaint you, that, by My Lord Treasurer's advice, I have made a considerable retrenchment upon my expenses in candles and charcoal, and do not intend to stop, but will, with your help, look into the late embezzlements of my dripping-pans and kitchen-stuff; of which, by the way, upon my conscience, neither My Lord Treasurer, nor My Lord Lauderdale, are guilty. I tell you my opinion; but if you should find them dabbling in that business, I tell you plainly, I leave them to you; for, I would have the world to know, I am not a man to be cheated."

"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

"I desire you to believe me as you have found me; and I do solemnly promise you, that whatsoever you give me shall be specially managed with the same conduct, trust, sincerity, and prudence, that I have ever practised, since my happy restoration."

The last work of Marvell's, published before his death, was,- An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England." Printed in 1678; reprinted in the State Trials, 1689. In this work, the principles of our constitution are clearly laid down; the legal authority of the Kings of England is precisely ascertained; and the glory of the monarch, and the happiness of the people, are proved equally to depend upon a strict observance of their respective obligations. In comparing the sovereigns of England with other potentates, he observes:

"The kings of England are in nothing inferior to other princes, save in being more abridged from injuring their own subjects; but have as large a field as any, of external felicity, wherein to exercise their own virtuo, and to reward and encourage it in others. In short, there is nothing that comes nearer the divine perfection, than

where the monarch, as with us, enjoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to mankind, under a disability to do all that is evil.”

He likewise draws a striking contrast of the miseries of a nation living under a Popish administration, and the blessings enjoyed under a Protestant government; nor can a stronger proof be adduced of the complexion of the reigning politics of that era, than the disgust.excited at Court by the free sentiments contained in this work. It has been denied by some historians, that Charles II. either encouraged Popery, or governed arbitrarily; and yet the following advertisement appeared in the Gazette, respecting Marvell's work:-" Whereas there have been lately printed and published, several seditious and scandalous libels, against the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, and other his Majesty's Courts of Justice, to the dishonour of his Majesty's government, and the hazard of the public peace: These are to give notice, that what person soever shall discover unto one of the Secretaries of State, the printer, publisher, author, or hander to the press, of any of the said libels, so that full evidence may be made thereof to a jury, without mentioning the informer; especially one libel, entitled 'An Account of the growth of Popery,' &c. and another called 'A seasonable Argument to all Grand Juries,' &c.; the discoverer shall be rewarded as follows: -he shall have £50. for the discovery of the printer, or publisher, and for the hander of it to the press, £100." &c. This reward of the Court did not move the calm disposition of Marvell; for, in a letter to his friend, Mr. POPPLE, dated 10th June, 1678, he pleasantly says,"There came out, about Christmas last, a large book, concerning The Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Go

vernment.'

.

There have been great rewards offered in

F

private, and considerable in the Gazette, to any who would inform of the author. Three or four books, printed since, have described, as near as it was proper to go, the man, Mr. Marvell, a member of Parliament, as the author; but if he had, surely he would not have escaped being questioned in Parliament, or some other place.” No prosecution, however, ensued.

Marvell had now rendered himself so obnoxious to the venal friends of a corrupt Court, and to the heir presumptive, JAMES, DUKE OF YORK, (himself a bigoted Papist) that he was beset on all sides by powerful enemies, who even proceeded so far as to menace his life. Hence he was obliged to use great caution, to appear seldom in public, and frequently to conceal the place of his abode: but all his care proved ineffectual to preserve him from their vengeance; for he died on the 16th of August, 1678, aged 58 years, not without strong suspi cions, (as his constitution was entire and vigorous) of having suffered under the effect of poison.

"But whether fate or art untwin'd his thread
Remains in doubt. Fame's lasting register
Shall leave his name enroll'd, as great as those
Who at Philippi for their country fell."

Marvell appears to have attended at a public court, in the Town-hall of Hull, a few weeks previously to his death; for in an extract from their books, we find the following entry:-"This day (29th July, 1678) the Court being met, Andrew Marvell, Esquire, one of the burgesses of Parliament for this Borough, came into Court, and several discourses were held about the town affaires."

The public, however, reaped the benefit of his patriot. ism the following year. His writings had opened the

eyes of several members of the House of Commons; and, those who had long been obsequious to government, now found so strong an opposition to its measures, that the King found himself under the necessity of dis solving his favourite assembly, which had sat for eighteen years, under the odious epithet of "The Pensionary Parliament." The new Parliament, which met in March 1679, seemed to have imbibed the sentiments of the deceased Marvell; the growth of Popery, the arbitrary. measures of the Ministry, and the expediency of excluding the DUKE OF YORK from the succession, being the chief objects which engaged their attention. The spirit of civil liberty, having now gone forth among the people, the Parliament, which assembled in 1680, steadily opposed the Popish succession. From the ashes of Marvell sprung up, as it were, a new race of patriots, whose vigorous integrity laid the foundation of the glorious Revolution.

On the death of Marvell, the Corporation of Hull assembled in Common-hall, and unanimously voted fifty pounds towards defraying the expense of his funeral.

In 1688, the inhabitants of his native town, who had not dared to declare their feelings under the two preceding Princes, to testify their grateful remembrance of his patriotic services, collected a sum of money for the purpose of raising a monument to his memory, in the church of St. Giles' in the Fields, London, where he was interred: but the bigoted Rector of the day would not suffer it to be placed within its walls. The epitaph, drawn up on the occasion, is a manly composition, and exhibits a bright example of active and incorruptible patriotism.