In 1649 thirty-three poets combined to weep over the early grave of the
Lord Henry Hastings, the eldest son of the sixth Earl of Huntingdon, who
died of the smallpox in the twentieth year of his age. Not even this
plentiful discharge of poets' tears should rob the young nobleman of his
claim to be regarded as a fine example of the great learning,
accomplishments, and high spirits of the age. We can still produce the
thirty-three poets, but what young nobleman is there who can boast such
erudition as had rewarded the scorned delights and the laborious days of
this Lord Hastings? We have at least the satisfaction of knowing that
did such a one exist he probably would not die of the smallpox. Among
the poets who wept on this occasion were Herrick, Sir John Denham,
Andrew Marvell, and John Dryden, then a Westminster schoolboy, whose
description of the smallpox is as bad as the disease.

Marvell's verses begin very prettily and soon introduce a characteristic
touch:--

"Go, stand betwixt the Morning and the Flowers,
And ere they fall arrest the early showers,
Hastings is dead; and we disconsolate
With early tears must mourn his early fate."

In 1650 Marvell, then in his twenty-ninth year, went to live with Lord
Fairfax at Nunappleton House in Yorkshire, as tutor to the only child
and daughter of the house, Mary Fairfax, aged twelve years (born 30th
July 1638). This proved to be a great event in Marvell's life as a poet,
and it happened at an epoch in the distinguished career of the famous
Parliamentarian general

"Whose name in arms through Europe rings."