Beside the actual inmates of the great house, the whole countryside swarmed with Fairfaxes.  At the Rectory of Bolton Percy was the late Lord-General’s uncle, Henry Fairfax, and his two sons, Henry, who succeeded to the title, and the better-known Brian, the biographer of the Duke of Buckingham.  At Stenton, four miles off, lived the widow of the gallant Sir William Fairfax, who died, covered with wounds, in 1644 before Montgomery Castle.  There were two sons and two daughters at Stenton, whilst Charles Fairfax, another uncle, and the lawyer and genealogist of the family, lived at no great distance with no less than fourteen children.  There were also sisters of Lord Fairfax, with families of their own, all settled in the same part of the county.

Such were the agreeable surroundings of our poet for two years, 1650-1652.  I must leave it to the imaginations of my readers to fill up the picture, for excepting the poems, which we may safely assume were written at Nunappleton House, and—­who can doubt it?—­read aloud to its inmates, there is nothing more to be said.

Before considering the Nunappleton poetry, a word must be got in of bibliography.  College exercises and complimentary verses excepted, Marvell printed none of his verse under his own name in his lifetime.  So far as his themes were political there is no need to wonder at this.  Indeed, the wonder is how, despite their anonymity, their author kept his ears; but why the Nunappleton verse should have remained in manuscript for more than thirty years is hard to explain.

Until Pope took his muse to market, poetry, apart from the drama, had no direct commercial value, or one too small to be ranked as a motive for publication.  None the less, the age loved distinction and appreciated wit, and to be known as a poet whose verses “numbered good intellects” was to gain the entree to the society of men both of intellect and fashion, and also, not infrequently, snug berths in the public service, and secretaryships to foreign missions and embassies.  Thus there was always, in addition to natural vanity, a strong motive for a seventeenth-century poet to publish his poems.  To-day one would hesitate to recommend a young man who wanted to get on in the world to publish a volume of verse; but the age of “wit” and “parts” is over.

It was not till 1681—­three years after Marvell’s death—­that the small folio appeared with a fine portrait, still dear to the collector, which contains for the first time what may be called the “garden-poetry” of our author, together with some specimens of his political and satirical versification.

Marvell’s most famous poem—­The Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland—­is not included in the 1681 volume, and remained in manuscript until 1776, as also did the poem upon Cromwell’s death.