Andrew, an English patriot of the seventeenth century, enjoys the distinction of having been the friend of Milton, the last member of Parliament who received wages from his constituents, and one of the most acute, learned, and witty controversialists and satirists of his age. He was born at Winestead in Holderness, county of York, on the 2d of March 1621. His father, a clergyman, afterwards removed to Hull, as lecturer in Trinity church, and master of the grammar school of that town. The death of the elder Marvell took place in 1640, under circumstances too remarkable to be ever forgotten in the Yorkshire calendar. He had agreed to cross the Humber with a young couple whom he was to marry at Barrow in Lincolnshire. The day was stormy, and the minister, though persuaded to share the danger of the passage, was so strongly impressed with a presentiment it would prove fatal, that, on entering the boat, he threw his cane ashore, exclaiming, " Ho, for heaven!" His fears were realized—the boat went down, and all on board perished. The parents of the affianced lady, it is said, adopted young Marvell as their son, and enabled him to travel abroad. He had when very young been entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, but was seduced away from the university by some Jesuit emissaries. His father found him in London and took him back to college, and Marvell ever afterwards was a firm friend of Protestant freedom and enlightened toleration. From a letter of Milton's to Secretary Bradshaw (discovered so late as 1826 in the State Paper Office), it appears that Marvell spent four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, and on his return was engaged in giving instruction in the languages to a daughter of Lord Fairfax. He had also been engaged by Cromwell to superintend the education of a Mr Dutton in Eton. In 1654 Marvell writes to Milton from Eton, describing his presentation of a copy of the Defensio Secunda, sent by Milton to Bradshaw (not to Cromwell, as Birch and Dr Symmons suppose). In 1657 Marvell was associated with Milton in the Latin secretaryship, the salary of each being the same, namely, L200 per annum. In 1660 the citizens of Hull elected Marvell their representative in Parliament, and in December of that year we find him generously interposing in behalf of his illustrious friend the poet. Milton had been in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and Marvell complained that excessive fees, amounting to no less than L150, had been exacted from him. The only answer which appears in the parliamentary history, is a remark by Finch, that Milton had been Cromwell's secretary, and deserved hanging! When the poet was afterwards attacked by an anonymous assailant (whom Marvell believed, and erroneously, to be the renegade Dr Samuel Parker), the member for Hull vindicated the character of his friend; and when Paradise Lost appeared, he was ready to greet the immortal epic and its author, "blind yet bold," with a copy of encomiastic verses. In his capacity of legislator Marvell was diligent and independent. He wrote daily to his constituents during the sitting of Parliament, and was the friend and counsellor of the small band of senators who firmly but cautiously resisted the arbitrary spirit of the court. When Parker inculcated the slavish doctrine of divine right and passive obedience, Marvell answered him in a vein of sarcastic railing as well as sound argument, which Swift said he read with pleasure though Parker's work had long been sunk. Another treatise by Marvell, An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Power in England, was deemed so formidable, that a reward was offered for the discovery of the printer. His poetical satires are much inferior to those in prose—grosser, and deficient in lively illustration. They were, however, greatly admired in his own day; and there is a story that Charles II. having met Marvell at a private house, was so pleased with the conversation of the wit, whose works he had read, that he attempted to win him over to the court. With this view he despatched Danby, the lord treasurer, to Marvell's lodgings, "in one of the small courts of the Strand, up two pair of stairs;" and the treasurer offered a sum of L1,000, with a promise of future favours,—all which, it is said, Marvell steadily refused, though he was obliged, on the departure of the courier, to send to a friend for the loan of a guinea. We have no faith in this traditionary anecdote, either as respects the king's liberality or Marvell's poverty, but it illustrates the popular opinion as to Marvell's simplicity and integrity of character. He died on the 20th of August, 1678. His death was so sudden as to give rise to a suspicion of his having been poisoned, for which, however, there is not the slightest evidence or authority. His remains were interred in the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, at the expense of his constituents, who also voted a sum for a monument; but the servility or resentment of the rector prevented the ashes of the patriot and friend of Milton from receiving this distinction. His memory was long cherished by the adherents of the "good old cause;" and besides his controversial and political services, Marvell had written some minor poems of great tenderness, fancy, and beauty, which were deservedly popular. His lyrical stanzas on the sailing of the emigrants for Bermuda, "Safe from the Storms and Prelates' rage," form one of the finest strains of the Puritan muse. A complete collection of Marvell's works was published in 1777 in three vols. 4to, by a native of Hull, Captain Thompson, who had inherited the enthusiasm of a former generation for Marvell, but appears to have been lamentably deficient in editorial diligence and literary information.