proposition like to that which you had before made to him by your
Letter to my advantage. However, I assure myself that he has since
read it, and you, that he did then witnesse all respecte to your
person, and as much satisfaction concerninge your work as could be
expected from so cursory a review and so sudden an account as he
could then have of it from me. Mr. Oxenbridge, at his returne from
London, will, I know, give you thanks for his book, as I do with all
acknowledgement and humility for that you have sent me. I shall now
studie it even to the getting of it by heart; esteeming it, according
to my poore judgment (which yet I wish it were so right in all things
else), as the most compendious scale for so much to the height of the
Roman Eloquence, when I consider how equally it turnes and rises with
so many figures it seems to me a Trajan's columne, in whose winding
ascent we see imboss'd the severall monuments of your learned
victoryes: And Salmatius and Morus make up as great a triumph as that
of Decebalus, whom too, for ought I know, you shall have forced, as
Trajan the other, to make themselves away out of a just desperation.
I have an affectionate curiousity to know what becomes of Colonell
Overton's businesse. And am exceeding glad that Mr. Skynner is got
near you, the happinesse which I at the same time congratulate to him
and envie, there being none who doth, if I may so say, more jealously
honour you then, Honoured Sir, Your most affectionate humble servant,
ANDREW MARVELL.

"Eaton, _June 2, 1654._"

Addressed: "For my most honoured friend,
John Milton, Esquire, Secretarye
for the Forrain affaires
at his house in Petty France,