Authors, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography; Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678
Though we can know nothing of the elder Marvell's methods of
re-conversion, they were more successful than the elder Gibbon's, who,
as we know, packed the future historian off to Lausanne and a Swiss
pastor's house. What Gibbon became on leaving off his Romanism we can
guess for ourselves, whereas Marvell, once out of the hands of these
very shadowy "Jesuits," remained the staunchest of Christian Protestants
to the end of his days.
This strange incident, and two college exercises or poems, one in
Greek, the other in Latin, both having reference to an addition to the
Royal Family, and appearing in the _Musa Cantabrigiensis_ for 1637, are
all the materials that exist for weaving the story of Marvell, the
Cambridge undergraduate. The Latin verses, which are Horatian in style,
contain one pretty stanza, composed apparently before the sex of the
new-born infant was known at Cambridge.
"Sive felici Carolum figura
Parvulus princeps imitetur almae
Sive Mariae decoret puellam
Dulcis imago."
After taking his Bachelor's degree in 1639, Marvell, being still a
Scholar of the college, must have gone away, for the Conclusion Book of
Trinity, under date September 24, 1641, records as follows:--
"It is agreed by y^e Master and 8 seniors y^t M^r Carter and D^r
Wakefields, D^r Marvell, D^r Waterhouse, and D^r Maye in regard y^t
some of them are reported to be married and y^t others look not after
y^eir days nor Acts shall receave no more benefitt of y^e Coll and
shall be out of y^ier places unless y^ei shew just cause to y^e Coll
for y^e contrary in 3 months."
Dr. Lort, in his amiable letter of 1765, already mentioned, points out
that this entry contains no reflection on Marvell's morals, but shows
that he was given "notice to quit" for non-residence, "then much more
strictly enjoined than it is now." The days referred to in the entry
were, so the master obligingly explains, "the certain number allowed by
statute to absentees," whilst the "acts mean the Exercises also enjoyned
by the statutes." Dr. Lort adds, "It does not appear, by any subsequent
entry, whether Marvell did or did not comply with this order." We may
now safely assume he did not. Marvell's Cambridge days were over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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