The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) eBook

Theodore Watts-Dunton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 353 pages of information about The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753).

The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) eBook

Theodore Watts-Dunton
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 353 pages of information about The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753).

The other instance is equally uncommon with the former:  Sir Richard having incited to his house a great number of persons of the first quality, they were surprized at the number of liveries which surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and mirth had set them free from the observation of rigid ceremony, one of them enquired of Sir Richard, how such an expensive train of domestics could be consistent with his fortune?  Sir Richard frankly confessed, that they were fellows of whom he would very willingly be rid.  And being then asked why he did not discharge them; he declared that they were Bailiffs who had introduced themselves with an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had thought it convenient to imbellish with liveries, that they might do him credit whilst they staid.

His friends were diverted with the expedient, and by paying the debt, discharged the attendance, having obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never find him again graced with a retinue of the same kind.

He married to his first wife a gentlewoman of Barbadoes, with whom he had a valuable Plantation there on the death of her brother, who was taken by the French at Sea as he was coming to England, and died in France.  This wife dying without issue, he married Mary, the daughter of Jonathan Scurlock of Langunnoc in Carmarthanshire, esq; by whom he had one son, Eugene, who died young:  of his two daughters, one only is living; which lady became sole heiress to a handsome estate in Wales.  She was married, when young, to the hon.  John Trevor, esq; one of the judges of the principality of Wales; who since, by the death of his brother, has taken his seat in the House of Lords, as Baron Trevor, &c.

[Footnote A:  General Dictionary, vol. ix, p. 395.]

[Footnote B:  His expulsion was owing to the spleen of the then prevailing party; what they design’d as a disgrace, prov’d an honour to him.]

* * * * *

Andrew Marvel, Esq;[A]

This ingenious gentleman was the son of Mr. Andrew Marvel, Minister and Schoolmaster of Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire, and was born in that town in the year 1620[B].  He was admitted into Trinity College in Cambridge December 14, 1633, where he had not been long before his studies were interrupted by the following accident: 

Some Jesuits with whom he familiarly conversed, observing in him a genius beyond his years, used their utmost efforts to proselyte him to their faith, which they imagined they could more easily accomplish while he was yet young.  They so far succeeded as to seduce him from the college, and carry him to London, where, after some months absence, his father found him in a Bookseller’s shop, and prevailed upon him to return to the college.

He afterwards pursued his studies with the most indefatigable application, and in the year 1638, took the degree of bachelor of arts, and the same year was admitted scholar of the house, that is, of the foundation at Trinity College[C].  We have no farther account of him for several years after this, only that he travelled through the most polite parts of the world, but in what quality we are not certain, unless in that of secretary to the embassy at Constantinople.

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The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.