Andrew Marvell by Augustine Birrell
page 92 of 307 (29%)
page 92 of 307 (29%)
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a better speech than ever his father was able to do. But he was not a
"restless" Cromwell, and had no faith in his destiny. I do not know whether he had ever read _Don Quixote_, in Shelton's translation, a very popular book of the time; probably not, for, though Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Richard was not a reading man, but if he had, he must have sympathised with Sancho Panza's attitude of mind towards the famous island. "If your highness has no mind that the government you promised should be given me, God made me of less, and perhaps it may be easier for Sancho, the Squire, to get to Heaven than for Sancho, the Governor. _In the dark all cats are gray._" The new Protector took up the reins of power with proper forms and ceremonies, and at once proceeded to summon a Parliament, an Imperial Cromwellian Parliament, containing representatives both from Scotland and Ireland. In this Parliament Andrew Marvell sat for the first time as one of the two members for Kingston-upon-Hull. His election took place on the 10th of January 1659, being the first county day after the sheriff had received the writ. Five candidates were nominated: Thomas Strickland, Andrew Marvell, John Ramsden, Henry Smyth, and Sir Henry Vane, and a vote being taken in the presence of the mayor, aldermen, and many of the burgesses, John Ramsden and Andrew Marvell were declared duly elected. Nobody to-day, glancing his eye over a list of the knights and burgesses who made up Richard Cromwell's first and last Parliament, would ever guess that it represented an order of things of the most recent date which was just about to disappear. On paper it has a solid look. The fine old crusted Parliamentary names with which the clerks |
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