This precious volume undoubtedly contained some poems by Marvell, and as his handwriting was both well known from many examples, and is highly characteristic, we may also be certain that the captain was not mistaken in his assertion that some of these poems were in Marvell’s own handwriting.  But, as ill-luck would have it, the volume also contained poems written at a later period and in quite another hand.  Among these latter pieces were Addison’s verses, The Spacious Firmament on High and When all thy Mercies, O my God; Dr. Watts’ paraphrase When Israel freed from Pharaoh’s Hand; and Mallet’s ballad William and Margaret.  The two Addison pieces and the Watts paraphrase appeared for the first time in the Spectator, Nos. 453, 465, and 461, in 1712, and Mallet’s ballad was first printed in 1724.

Still there these pieces were, in manuscript, in this volume, and as there were circumstances of mystification attendant upon their prior publication, what does the captain do but claim them all, Songs of Zion and sentimental ballad alike, as Marvell’s.  This of course brought the critics, ever anxious to air their erudition, down upon his head, raised his anger, and occasioned the destruction of the book.

Mr. Grosart says that Captain Thompson states that the Horatian Ode was in Marvell’s handwriting.  I cannot discover where this statement is made, though it is made of other poems in the volume, also published for the first time by the captain.

All, therefore, we know is that the Ode was first published in 1776 by an editor who says he found it copied in a book, subsequently destroyed, which contained (among other things) some poems written in Marvell’s handwriting, and that this book was given to the editor by a grand-nephew of the poet.

Yet I imagine, poor as this evidence may seem to be, no student of Marvell’s life and character (so far as his life reveals his character), and of his verse (so much of it as is positively known), wants more evidence to satisfy him that the Horatian Ode is as surely Marvell’s as the lines upon Appleton House, the Bermudas, To his Coy Mistress, and The Garden.

The great popularity of this Ode undoubtedly rests on the three stanzas:—­

    “That thence the royal actor borne,
    The tragic scaffold might adorn,
      While round the armed bands;
      Did clap their bloody hands: 

    He nothing common did, or mean,
    Upon that memorable scene,
      But with his keener eye
      The axe’s edge did try;

    Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
    To vindicate his helpless right,
      But bowed his comely head
      Down, as upon a bed.”

It is strange that the death of the king should be so nobly sung in an Ode bearing Cromwell’s name and dedicate to his genius:—­

    “So restless Cromwell could not cease
    In the inglorious arts of peace,
      But through adventurous war
      Urged his active star;