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ART. IX.-The Works of Andrew Marvell, Esq., Poetical, Controversial, and Political; containing many Original Letters, Poems, and Tracts, never before printed, with a new Life of the Author. By Captain Edward Thompson. In Three Volumes. London, 1776.

We resume our notice of the works of Marvell, to which we could not do justice in the limits of one number.

As a poet, Marvel was certainly unequal; and some of his most beautiful passages are alloyed with vulgarism and common-place similes. His poem of the Nymph lamenting the Death of her Fawn, is, perhaps, the most finished, and, on the whole, the best of the collection. All the poems, however, contain more or less of poetic beauty; some, great tenderness of feeling and expression; and others, successful descriptions of nature and pastoral scenes. Before we proceed to an account of his prose works, we shall give some further extracts from the poetical ones.

The following passages are selected from a poem of considerable length, entitled "Appleton House," a residence of Lord Fairfax's, in Yorkshire, now called Nun Appleton, and addressed to that nobleman.

"When first the eye this forest sees,

It seems, indeed, as wood, not trees;
As if their neighbourhood, so old,

To one great trunk them all did mould.
There the huge bulk takes place, as meant

To thrust up a fifth element;

And stretches still, so closely wedged,
As if the night within were hedg'd.
Dark all without it knits; within

It opens passable and thin;
And in as loose an order grows,
As the Corinthian porticoes.
The arching boughs unite between,
The columns of the temple green;
And, underneath, the winged choirs,
Echo about their tuned fires..

The nightingale does here make choice,

Thus I, easy philosopher,

Among the birds and trees confer;

And little now to make me wants
Or of the fowls, or of the plants.
Give me but wings, as they, and I
Straight floating on the air shall fly;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree.
Already I begin to call

In their most learn'd original;
And where I language want, my signs
The bird upon the bough divines;
And, more attentive, there doth sit,
Than if she were with lime-twigs knit.
No leaf does tremble in the wind,
Which I returning cannot find.

Out of these scattered Sibyl's leaves,
Strange prophecies my fancy weaves ;
And in one history consumes,

Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes.
What Rome, Greece, Palestine, e'er said,
I in this light mosaic read.

Thrice happy he, who, not mistook,
Hath read in Nature's mystic book.
And see how chance's better wit
Could with a mask my studies hit!
The oak leaves me embroider all
Between which caterpillars crawl;
And ivy, with familiar trails,

Me licks, and clasps, and curls, and hales.

Under this antic cope 1 move

Like some great prelate of the grove.

Then, languishing with ease, I toss

On pallets swoln of velvet moss;

While the wind, cooling through the boughs,
Flatters with air my panting brows.
Thanks for my rest, ye mossy banks;
And unto you, cool zephyrs, thanks;
Who, as my hair, my thoughts too shed,
And winnow from the chaff my head.
How safe, methinks, and strong, behind
These trees, have I incamp'd my mind:
Where beauty, aiming at the heart,
Bends in some tree its useless dart;
And where the world no certain shot
Can make, or me it toucheth not.

But I on it securely play,

And gall its horsemen all the day.
Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines,
Curl me about, ye gadding vines,
And oh, so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place :
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
E'er I your silken bondage break,

Do

you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through.
Here in the morning tie my chain,
Where the two woods have made a lane;
While, like a guard on either side,
The trees before their lords divide ;
This, like a long and equal thread,
Betwixt two labyrinths does lead.
But, where the floods did lately drown,
There at the ev'ning stake me down.
For now the waves are fall'n and dry'd,
And now the meadows fresher dy'd;
Whose grass, with moister colour dash'd,
Seems as green silks but newly wash'd.
No serpent new, nor crocodile,
Remains behind our little Nile;
Unless itself you will mistake,
Among these meads the only snake.
See in what wanton harmless folds,
It ev'ry where the meadow holds;
And its yet muddy back doth lick,
Till as a crystal mirror slick;

Where all things gaze themselves, and doubt
If they be in it, or without.

And for his shade which therein shines,

Narcissus-like, the sun too pines.

Oh what a pleasuse 'tis to hedge
My temples here with heavy sedge;
Abandoning my lazy side,

Stretch'd as a bank unto the tide;
Or to suspend my sliding foot
On th' osier's undermined root,
And in its branches tough to hang,
While at my lines the fishes twang!
But now away my hooks, my quills,
And angles, idle utensils.

The young Maria walks to night;
Hide, trifling youth, thy pleasures slight;
"Twere shame that such judicious eyes
Should with such toys a man surprise;
She that already is the law
Of all her sex, her age's awe.
See how loose nature, in respect
To her, itself doth recollect;

And every thing so wish'd, and fine,
Starts forth with it to its bonne mine.
The sun himself, of her aware,
Seems to descend with greater care;
And lest she see him go to bed,
In blushing clouds conceals his head.
So when the shadow's laid asleep,
From underneath these banks do creep,
And on the river as it flows,
With ebon shuts begin to close;
The modest halcyon comes in sight,
Flying betwixt the day and night;
And such an horror calm and dumb,
Admiring nature does benumb,
The viscous air, where'er she fly,
Follows and sucks her azure dye;
The jellying stream compacts below,
If it might fix her shadow so;
The stupid fishes hang, as plain
As flies in crystal overta'en;
And men the silent scene assist,
Charm'd with the sapphire-winged mist.
Maria such, and so doth hush

The world, and through the ev'ning rush.
No new-born comet such a train

Draws through the sky, nor star new-slain.
For straight those giddy rockets fail,
Which from the putrid earth exhale,
But by her flames in heaven try'd,
Nature is wholly vitrify'd.

"Tis she, that to these gardens gave
That wondrous beauty which they have;
She straitness on the woods bestows;
To her the meadow sweetness owes ;
Nothing could make the river be
So crystal-pure, but only she;

She yet more pure, sweet, strait, and fair,

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