Hull was not wholly unmindful of her late and (William Wilberforce notwithstanding) her most famous member.  “On Thursday the 26th of September 1678, in consideration of the kindness the Town and Borough had for Andrew Marvell, Esq., one of the Burgesses of Parliament for the same Borough (lately deceased), and for his great merits from the Corporation.  It is this day ordered by the Court that Fifty pounds be paid out of the Town’s Chest towards the discharge of his funerals (sic), and to perpetuate his memory by a gravestone” (Bench Books of Hull).

The incumbent of Trinity Church is said to have objected to the erection of any monument.  At all events there is none.  Marvell had many enemies in the Church.  Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York, was a Yorkshire man, and had been domestic chaplain to Sir Heneage Finch, a lawyer-member, much lashed by Marvell’s bitter pen.  Sharp had also taken part in the quarrel with the Dissenters, and is reported to have been very much opposed to any Hull monument to Marvell.  Captain Thompson says “the Epitaph which the Town of Hull caused to be erected to Marvell’s memory was torn down by the Zealots of the King’s party.”  There is no record of this occurrence.

There are several portraits of Marvell in existence—­one now being in the National Portrait Gallery.  A modern statue in marble adorns the Town Hall of Hull.

FOOTNOTES: 

[211:1] In reading the early volumes of the Parliamentary History the question has to be asked, What authority is there for the reports of speeches?  In Charles the Second’s time some of the speakers, both in the Lords and Commons, evidently communicated their orations to the press.

[215:1] Lord Mayor, 1667.

[220:1] See Marvell’s Ghost, in Poems on Affairs of State.

[223:1] The cottage at Highgate, long called ‘Marvell’s Cottage,’ has now disappeared.  Several of Marvell’s letters were written from Highgate.

CHAPTER VIII

WORK AS A MAN OF LETTERS

Marvell’s work as a man of letters easily divides itself into the inevitable three parts. First, as a poet properly so called; Second, as a political satirist using rhyme; and Third, as a writer of prose.

Upon Marvell’s work as a poet properly so called that curious, floating, ever-changing population to whom it is convenient to refer as “the reading public,” had no opportunity of forming any real opinion until after the poet’s death, namely, when the small folio of 1681 made its appearance.  This volume, although not containing the Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland or the lines upon Cromwell’s death, did contain, saving these exceptions, all the best of Marvell’s verse.