Attached to the Grammar School there was "a great garden," renowned for
its wall-fruit and flowers; so by leaving Winestead behind, our
"garden-poet," that was to be, was not deprived of inspiration.

Apart from these meagre facts, we know nothing of Marvell's boyhood at
Hull. His clerical foe, Dr. Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, writes
contemptuously of "an hunger-starved whelp of a country vicar," and in
another passage, which undoubtedly refers to Marvell, he speaks of "an
unhappy education among Boatswains and Cabin-boys," whose unsavoury
phrases, he goes on to suggest, Marvell picked up in his childhood. But
truth need not be looked for in controversial pages. The best argument
for a married clergy is to be found, for Englishmen at all events, in
the sixty-seven volumes of the _Dictionary of National Biography_, where
are recorded the services rendered to religion, philosophy, poetry,
justice, and the empire by the "whelps" of many a country vicar.
Parsons' wives may sometimes be trying and hard to explain, but an
England without the sons of her clergy would be shorn of half her glory.

Marvell's boyhood seems to have been surrounded with the things that
most make for a child's happiness. A sensible, affectionate, humorous,
religious father, occupying a position of authority, and greatly
respected, a mother and three elder sisters to make much of his bright
wit and early adventures, a comfortable yet simple home, and an
atmosphere of piety, learning, and good fellowship. What more is wanted,
or can be desired? The "Boatswains" and "Cabin-boys" of Bishop Parker's
fancy were in the neighbourhood, no doubt, and as stray companions for a
half-holiday must have had their attractions; but it is unnecessary to
attribute Andrew Marvell's style in controversy to his early
acquaintance with a sea-faring population, for he is far more likely to