IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS


Cromwell's death was an epoch in Marvell's history. Up to that date he
had, since he left the University, led the life of a scholar, with a
turn for business, and was known to many as an agreeable companion and a
lively wit. He was keenly interested in public affairs, and personally
acquainted with some men in great place, and for a year before
Cromwell's death he had been in a branch of the Civil Service; but of
the wear and tear, the strife and contention, of what are called
"practical politics" he knew nothing from personal experience.

Within a year of the Protector's death all this was changed and, for the
rest of his days, with but the shortest of occasional intervals, Andrew
Marvell led the life of an active, eager member of Parliament, knowing
all that was going on in the Chamber and hearing of everything that was
alleged to be going on in the Court; busily occupied with the affairs of
his constituents in Hull, and daily watching, with an increasingly heavy
heart and a bitter humour, the corruption of the times, the declension
of our sea-power, the growing shame of England, and what he believed to
be a dangerous conspiracy afoot for the undoing of the Reformation and
the destruction of the Constitution in both Church and State.

"Garden-poetry" could not be reared on such a soil as this. The age of
Cromwell and Blake was over. The remainder of Marvell's life (save so
far as personal friendship sweetened it) was spent in politics, public
business, in concocting roughly rhymed and bitter satirical poems, and
in the composition of prose pamphlets.