been more ready to give, than we to receive.' In all his earlier letters he speaks respectfully and favourably of Charles and the royal family, and seems to have entertained hopes of a just and equal government, true and comprehensive amnesty of all past offences between prince and subject, between all sects and parties, between each man and his neighbour. "In speaking of the measures then on foot for establishing the militia, he advises rather to trust to his majesty's goodness,' than to confirm a perpetual and exorbitant power by law.' This sentiment not only shows that the patriot was not then ill-affected towards the restored line, but proves him to have been a truly wise and liberal statesman; unlike too many champions of liberty, who, in their dread of prerogative, have unwarily strengthened the tyranny of law, a thing without bowels or conscience, and overlooks the chronic diseases of custom, which slowly but surely reduce the body politic to a condition of impotence and dotage." He is reported to have spoken but seldom in the house, but to have possessed great personal influence over the members of the commons, and also with the peers. His exertions in favour of religious liberty, and against the excise, were particularly noted. In 1663 he retired from his parliamentary duties, and accompanied Lord Carlisle as secretary to Russia; but he appears to have accepted this appointment rather from private friendship than on public grounds. He continued there and in Sweden and Denmark, nearly two years. On the 15th of October, 1665, we find him attending the parliament at Oxford. From this period to October 1674, Marvell's correspondence gives a regular account of the proceedings of the two houses; and the prorogation of parliament, in November, 1675, terminates his parliamentary labours. We have no room here to particularize, or quote the various prose works in which he boldly advocated the public cause. He was proof against every assault on his invincible public integrity. Neither the personal compliments of the king himself who delighted in the wit of his society, nor the golden offers of Charles's treasurer, Danby, who, with difficulty found him in his "elevated retreat, in the second floor of a court in the Strand," the very day he borrowed a guinea,-could daunt his courage or stay his opposition to the government, much less tempt him to prostitute his pen in its behalf. His personal satire against the king himself, his tracts against popery and the ministry, his desperate literary battles with Parker and others, repeatedly endangered his life. But it was all to no purpose on the part of his enemies; he was a rock amidst the foaming ocean; his Roman virtue was incorruptible. He at last died suddenly on the 29th of July, 1678, while attending a public meeting in the town-hall of Hull-it is supposed by poison, as his health had been remarkably good previous to his seizure. Thus, probably, was the threat actually fulfilled,-"If thou darest to print or publish any lie or libel against Dr Parker, by the eternal God I will cut thy throat !" "But whether fate or art untwined thy thread As a specimen of Marvell's prose style, the following ironical observations on the invention of printing must suffice :-"The press (that villanous engine), invented much about the same time with the Reformation, hath done more mischief to the discipline of our church than the doctrine can make amends for. It was a happy time, when all learning was in manuscript, and some little officer, like our author, did keep the keys of the library. When the clergy needed no more knowledge than to read the liturgy, and the laity no more clerkship than to save them from hanging. But now, since printing came into the world, such is the mischief, that a man cannot write a book, but presently he is answered. Could the press but at once be conjured to obey only an imprimatur, our author might not disdaine, perhaps, to be one of its most zealous patrons. There have been wayes found out to banish ministers, to find not only the people, but even the grounds and fields where they assembled, in conventicles; but no art yet could prevent these seditious meetings of letters. Two or three brawney fellows in a corner, with meer ink and elbow grease, do more harm than a hundred systematical divines, with their sweaty preaching. And, what is a strange thing, the very spunges, which one would think should rather deface and blot out the whole book, and were anciently used for that purpose, are become now the instruments to make them legible. Their ugly printing letters look but like so many rotten tooth drawers; and yet these rascally operators of the press have got a trick to fasten them again in a few minutes, that they grow as firm a set, and as biting and talkative, as ever. O, printing! how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind!—that lead, when moulded into bullets, is not so mortal as when formed into letters! There was a mistake, sure, in the story of Cadmus ; and the serpents' teeth which he sowed were nothing else but the letters which he invented. The first essay that was made towards this art, was in single characters upon iron, wherewith, of old, they stigmatized slaves and remarkable offenders; and it was of good use, sometimes to brand a schismatic; but a bulky Dutchman diverted it quite from its first institution, and contriving those innumerable syntagmes of alphabets, hath pestered the world ever since, with the gross bodies of their German divinity. One would have thought in reason, that a Dutchman might have contented himself only with the winepress. The following fine lines are from his Horatian ode to Oliver Cromwell: That Charles himself might chace The axe's edge did trye. Nor call'd the Gods with vulgar spight, But bow'd his comely head This was that memorable houre, A bleeding head where they begun Sir Henry Blount. BORN A. D. 1602.-DIED A. D. 1682. SIR HENRY BLOUNT figured in a critical period of his country's history, both as a politician and a man of letters. It was his good fortune also to enjoy the confidence of the ruling parties successively. He was the third son of Sir Thomas Pope Blount of Tittenhanger, in the county of Hertford, a cadet of the very ancient house of the Blounts of Sodington in Worcestershire. He was born in December 1602. He received the rudiments of education at the school of St Alban's, whence he removed to Trinity college, Oxford, in 1616. On leaving Oxford, he went to Gray's-inn, where for some time he applied himself to the study of the law. In 1634 he went abroad, for the purpose of enlarging his acquaintance with mankind, and visiting the most celebrated cities of France, Spain, and Italy. His travels soon begot in him an ardent desire to see more of the world, and, having made acquaintance with a Turk at Venice, he resolved to visit the Turkish dominions in company with him. With this view he embarked, on the 7th of May 1634, on board a Venetian galley, in which he sailed to Spalatro, and thence continued his journey by land to Constantinople. From Constantinople he went to Egypt and visited Grand Cairo. turning to England in 1636, he published an account of his travels, and became known to society by the appellation of the great traveller.' His book is entitled, "A Voyage into the Levant, being a brief relation of a journey lately performed from England, by the way of Venice, into Dalmatia, Sclavonia, Bosnia, Hungary, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace, Rhodes, and Egypt, unto Grand Cairo; with particular observations concerning the modern condition of the Turks, and other people under that empire." It was first published in 4to in 1636. In 1638, a third edition appeared in the same size. Wood says it was so well esteemed abroad that it had been translated into French and Dutch. But the author of the introductory discourse to Churchill's 'Collection of voyages,' says of Blount's works: "It is very concise, Re |