The reader must have already taken notice that Mr. Marvel's chief support was the pension allowed him by his constituents, that his lodgings, were mean, and consequently his circumstances at this time could not be affluent. His resisting these temptations therefore in such a situation, was perhaps one of the most heroic instances of patriotism the Annals of England can furnish. But his conduct will be still heightened into a more amiable light, when it is related, that as soon as the lord treasurer had taken his leave, he was obliged to send to a friend to borrow a guinea. As the most powerful allurements of riches, and honour, could never seduce him to relinquish the interest of his country, so not even the most immense dangers could deter him from pursuing it. In a private letter to a friend from Highgate, in which he mentions the insuperable hatred of his foes to him, and their design of murthering him, he has these words; Praeterea magis eccidere metuo quam occidi, non quod vitam tanti aestimem, sed ne imparatus moriar, i.e., 'Besides, I am more apprehensive of killing, than being killed, not that I value life so much, but that I may not die unprepared.' Mr. Marvel did not remain an unconcerned member of the state, when he saw encroachments made upon it both by the civil, and ecclesiastical powers. He saw that some of the bishops had formed an idea of protestantism very different from the true one, and were making such advances towards popery, as would soon issue in a reconciliation. Amongst these ecclesiastics, none was so forward as Dr. Samuel Parker, who published at London 1672 in 8vo. bishop Bramhal's Vindication of himself, and the Episcopal Clergy, from the Presbyterian charge of Popery, as it is managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise on the Grotian Religion. Dr. Parker likewise preached up the doctrine of Non-resistance, which slavish principle is admirably calculated to prepare the people for receiving any yoke. Marvel, whose talent consisted in drollery, more than in serious reasoning, took his own method of exposing those opinions. He wrote a piece called The Rehearsal Transposed, in which he very successfully ridiculed Dr. Parker. This ludicrous essay met with several answers, some serious, and others humorous; we shall not here enumerate all the Rejoinders, Replies, and Animad-versions upon it. Wood himself confesses, who was an avowed enemy to Marvel, 'that Dr. Parker judged it more prudent rather to lay down the cudgels, than to enter the lists again, with an untowardly combatant, so hugely well versed, and experienced, in the then newly refined art of sporting, and jeering buffoonery.' And bishop Burnet tells us in the History of his own Time, 'That Dr. Parker, after he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books, was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who wrote in a burlesque stile, but with so peculiar, and entertaining a conduct, that from the King down to the tradesman, his book was read with great pleasure. This not only humbled Parker, but the whole party, for the author of The Rehearsal Transposed, had all the men of wit on his side.' Dr. Swift likewise in his Apology for the Tale of a Tub, speaking of the usual fate of common answerers to books, and how short-lived their labours are, observes, 'That there is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvel's answer to Parker with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago.'
The next controversy in which we find Mr. Marvel engaged, was with an antagonist of the pious Dr. Croft, bishop of Hereford, who wrote a discourse entitled The Naked Truth, or A True State of the Primitive Church: By an humble Moderator. Dr. Turner, fellow of St. John's College, wrote Animadversions upon this book; Mr. Marvel's answer to these Animadversions, was entitled Mr. Smirk, or The Divine in Mode; being certain Annotations upon the Animadversions on The Naked Truth, together with a Short Historical Essay concerning General Councils, Creeds, and Impositions in Matters of Religion, printed 1676.
Our author's next work was An Account of the Growth of Popery, and Arbitrary Government in England; more particularly from the long prorogation of November 1675, ending February 15, 1676, 'till the meeting of Parliament July 15, 1677, printed in folio 1678. Our author in a letter dated June 10, 1678, wrote thus; 'There came out about Christmas last here, a large book concerning the Growth of Popery, and Arbitrary Government. There have been great rewards offered in private, and considerable, in the Gazette, to any, who would inform of the author, and Printer, but not yet discovered. Three or four printed books since have described (as near as was proper to go, the man being a member of Parliament) Mr. Marvel to be the author, but if he had, he surely could not have escaped being questioned in Parliament, or 'Some other place.' This book was so offensive to the court at that time, that an order was published in these words,
'Whereas there have been lately printed, and published several seditious, and scandalous libels against the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, and other his Majesty's Courts of Justice, to the dishonour of his Majesty's government, and the hazard of the public peace, these are to give notice, that what person soever shall discover unto one of the secretaries of state, the printer, publisher, author, or hander to the press of any of the said libels, so that full evidence may be made thereof to a Jury, without mentioning the informer, especially one libel, entitled An Account of the Growth of Popery; and another called A Reasonable Argument to all the Grand Juries, &c. the discoverer shall be rewarded as follows; he shall have fifty pounds for such discovery as aforesaid, of the printer or publisher of it from the press, and for the hander of it to the press, one hundred pounds.'
Mr. Marvel begins this book with a panegyric on the constitution of the English government, shewing how happy the people are under such wholesome laws, which if faithfully observed, must make a people happy, and a monarch great. He observes, that the king and the subject are equally under the laws; and that the former is no longer king than he continues to obey them. 'So that, says he, the kings of England, are in nothing inferior to other princes, save in being more abridg'd from injuring their own subjects, but have as large a field as any of external felicity, wherein to exercise their own virtue, and to reward and encourage it in others. In short there is nothing that comes nearer the divine perfection, than when the monarch, as with us, enjoys a capacity of doing all the good imaginable to mankind, under a disability of all that is evil.'
After slightly tracing popery from earlier times, he begins with the Dutch war in 1665; but dwells most upon the proceedings at Rome, from November 1675, to July 1677. He relates the occasion of the Dutch war, shews that the papists, and the French in particular, were the true springs of all our councils; and draws the following picture of popery.
'It is such a thing, as cannot but for want of a word to express it, be called a religion; nor is it to be mentioned with that civility, which is otherwise decent to be used in speaking of the differences of human opinions about divine matters; were it either open Juadism, or plain Turkery, or, there is yet a certain Bona Fides in the most extravagant belief, and the sincerity of an erroneous profession may render it more pardonable: But this is a compound of all the three, an extract of whatever is most ridiculous or impious in them, incorporated with more peculiar absurdities of its own, in which those were deficient; and all this deliberately contrived, and knowingly carried on, by the solid imposture of priests, under the name of Christianity.'
This great man died, not without strong suspicions of being poisoned, August 16, 1678, in the 58th year of his age, and was interred in the church of St. Giles's in the Fields; and in the year 1688 the town of Kingston upon Hull contributed a sum of money to erect a monument over him, in St. Giles's church, for which an epitaph was composed by an able hand; but the minister of that church, piously forbad both the inscription and monument to be placed there.
Mr. Wood tells us, that in his conversation, he was very modest, and of few words; and Mr. Cooke observes, 'that he was very reserved among people he did not very well know; but a most delightful, and improving companion amongst his friends.'
In the year 1680, his miscellaneous poems were published, to which is prefixed this advertisement. 'These are to certify every ingenious reader, that all these poems, as also the other things in this book contained, are printed according to the exact copies of my late dear husband, under his own hand writing, both found since his death, among his other papers.