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This last audacious picture might be hung up as a prose pendant to Marvell's poetical description of Holland and the Dutch. "A saving stupidity marks and protects their perception as the curtain of the eagle's eye. Our swifter Americans, when they first deal with English, pronounce them stupid; but, later, do them justice as people who wear well, or hide their strength.
Dean Swift, in commenting upon the usual fate of controversial pamphlets, which seldom live beyond their generation, says: "There is indeed an exception, when a great genius undertakes to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago."
In such case, however, they must have forgotten 'the fault of the Dutch' which Andrew Marvell's couplet has recorded of 'giving too little and asking too much. The Transvaal Boers are very practical people, and no matter what they may receive or how they get it, whether by way of diplomacy or barter or the accident of good luck or deed of gift, they never neglect to press and scheme for more.
They are so still; or they were so certainly in the day when a great novelist found the smallness of some South German States to be the subject of unsating banter. In Andrew Marvell's day they were even more candid. The poverty of privation itself was provocative of the sincere laughter of the inmost man, the true, infrequent laughter of the heart.
Bishop Burnet remarks that "Marvell writ in a burlesque strain, but with so peculiar and so entertaining a conduct 'that from the King down to the tradesman his books were read with great pleasure, and not only humbled Parker, but his whole party, for Marvell had all the wits on his side." The Bishop further remarks that Marvell's satire "gave occasion to the only piece of modesty with which Dr.
Popple discussed the novel of the day, especially in relation to the sensibilities of its hero and heroine, gave Undine a sense of intellectual activity which contrasted strikingly with Marvell's flippant estimate of such works.
Considering how valuable these would be if employed in service of the court, Charles resolved to tempt Marvell's integrity. For this purpose the Lord Treasurer Danby sought and found him in his chamber, situated in the second floor of a mean house standing in a court off the Strand.
Marvell's eyes were grey, like her own, with chestnut eyebrows and darker lashes; and his skin was as clear as a woman's, but pleasantly reddish, like his hands.
It seemed to Agnes as if night and certainty would never come. Yet how could she wish it, when she felt so sure what the awful certainty would be? The hours wore on; the dark came at last; and when the night had fairly set in, Cicely Marvell's soft tap was heard on Mistress Winter's door. Agnes opened it herself.
It is true that Marvell's political pamphlets were less elaborate and profound than those of the author of the glorious Defence of Unlicensed Printing.
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