Milton’s letter to Bradshaw, who had made his home at Eton, is dated February 21, 1653, and is as follows:—­

“MY LORD,—­But that it would be an interruption to the public wherein your studies are perpetually employed, I should now and then venture to supply thus my enforced absence with a line or two, though it were onely my business, and that would be no slight one, to make my due acknowledgments of your many favours; which I both do at this time and ever shall; and have this farther, which I thought my part to let you know of, that there will be with you to-morrow upon some occasion of business a gentleman whose name is Mr. Marvile, a man whom both by report and the converse I have had with him of singular desert for the State to make use of, who also offers himself, if there be any employment for him.  His father was the Minister of Hull, and he hath spent four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaining of these four languages, besides he is a scholer and well-read in the Latin and Greek authors, and no doubt of an approved conversation, for he now comes lately out of the house of the Lord Fairfax, who was Generall, where he was intrusted to give some instructions in the languages to the Lady, his daughter.  If upon the death of Mr. Weckerlyn the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the performance of my place (though for my part I find no encumbrance of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I must confess in my condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for them to find a man so fit every way for that purpose as this gentleman:  one who, I believe, in a short time would be able to do them as much service as Mr. Ascan.  This, my Lord, I write sincerely without any other end than to perform my duty to the publick in helping them to an humble servant; laying aside those jealousies and that emulation which mine own condition might suggest to me by bringing in such a coadjutor; and remain, my Lord, your most obliged and faithful servant,
                                                       JOHN MILTON.

“Feb. 21, 1652 (O.S.).”

Addressed:  “For the Honourable the Lord Bradshawe.”

No handsomer testimonial than this was ever penned.  It was unsuccessful.  When Milton wrote to Bradshaw, Weckherlin was in fact dead, and on his retirement in the previous December, John Thurloe, the very handy Secretary of the Council, had for the time assumed Weckherlin’s duties, and obtained on that score an addition to his salary.  No actual vacancy, therefore, occurred on Weckherlin’s death.  None the less, shortly afterwards, Philip Meadows, also a Cambridge man, was appointed Milton’s assistant, and Marvell had to wait four years longer for his place.

When Marvell’s connection with Eton first began is not to be ascertained.  His friend, John Oxenbridge, who had been driven from his tutorship at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, by Laud in 1634 to