in arms to defend their favourite poet.

"But when the beauteous Ladies came to know
That their dear Lovelace was endangered so,
Lovelace that thaw'd the most congealèd breast,
He who lov'd best and them defended best,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd."

One of them challenged Marvell as to whether he had not been of the
poet's traducers, but he answered No!

"O No, mistake not, I reply'd, for I
In your defence or in his cause would die.
But he, secure of glory and of time,
Above their envy or my aid doth climb.
Him, bravest men and fairest nymphs approve,
His book in them finds Judgment, with you, Love."

Lovelace did not live to see the Restoration, but died in a mean lodging
near Shoe Lane in April 1658, and was buried in St. Bridget's Church.
Let us indulge the hope that the friends who occupied so many of the
introductory pages of Lovelace's _Lucasta_ occasionally enlivened the
solitude and relieved the distress of the poet whose praises they had
once sung with so much vigour. As Marvell was undoubtedly a friendly
man, and one who loved to be alone with his friends, and had never any
house of his own to keep up, living for the most part in hired lodgings,
it would be unkind to doubt that he at least did not forget Lovelace in
his poverty and depression of spirit.