A TRUE MAN | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 27, 1881

A TRUE MAN.

ANDREW MARVELL, Milton's friend, favored the Restoration, but he satirized the vices of Charles II., and the corruptions of his court. The satires caused such a sensation that the king determined to win Marvell over to the court party. Threats, flattery, caresses, and bribes were tried, but Marvell's honor kept him steadfast to the right.

Lord Treasurer Danby had been Marvell's school-fellow, and Charles' Ministers employed him to offer a bribe to the honest old patriot, who would vote in Parliament for his country. He called upon Marvell in his garret, and at parting slipped into his hand an order on the treasury for £1,000.

"My Lord," calls out Marvell, having looked at the paper as the nobleman was getting into his carriage, "I request another moment."

They went up again to the garret, and Jack, the servant-boy, was called.

"Jack, child, what had I for dinner yesterday?"

"Don't you remember, sir? you had the little shoulder of mutton that you ordered me to bring from a woman in the market."

"Very right, child. What have I for dinner to-day?"

"Don't you know, sir, that you bid me lay by the blade-bone to broil?"

" 'Tis so, very right, child; go away."

"My Lord," said Marvell, turning to the Treasurer, "do you hear that? Andrew Marvell's dinner is provided; there's your piece of paper. I want it not. I knew the sort of kindness you intended. I live here to serve my constituents; the Ministry may seek men for their purpose; I am not one."

When Andrew Marvell died, his constituents carved on his tombstone: "Beloved by good men; feared by bad; imitated by few; and scarce paralleled by any."