One of his earliest efforts in this direction
was aimed at the Abbe de Maniban, a learned ecclesiastic, whose
chief fault in Marvell's eyes lay in the fact of his professing
to judge characters from handwriting.
Whilst in Italy, Andrew Marvell met John Milton, and they having
many tastes and convictions in common, became fast friends. In
1653, the former returned to England, and for some time acted as
tutor to Mistress Fairfax; he being an excellent scholar, and a
great master of the Latin tongue. He now led a peaceful and
obscure life until 1657. In that year, Milton, "laying aside,"
as he wrote, "those jealousies, and that emulation which mine own
condition might suggest to me," introduced him to Bradshaw; soon
after which he was made assistant-secretary to Milton, who was
then in the service of Cromwell.
He had not been long engaged in this capacity, when the usurper
died; and Marvell's occupation being gone, the goodly burgesses
of the town of Hull, who loved him well, elected him as their
representative in parliament, for which service, in accordance
with a custom of the time, he was paid. The salary, it is true,
was not large, amounting to two shillings a day for borough
members; yet when kindly feeling and honest satisfaction mutually
existed between elector and representative, as in Marvell's case,
the wage was at times supplemented by such acceptable additions
as home-cured pork and home-brewed ale, "We must first give you
thanks," wrote Marvell on one occasion to his constituents, on
the receipt of a cask of beer, "for the kind present you have
pleased to send us, which will give occasion to us to remember
you often; but the quantity is so great, that it might make sober
men forgetful.
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