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Marvell's Horatian Ode
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2021
Extract
Criticism of the Horatian ode is in much the same state as it was twenty, or even fifty years ago, although recently the opinion has rightly been gaining ground that Marvell was less ambiguously Cromwellian than older and more sentimentally royalist readers liked to think. However, a belief in Marvell's political impartiality, or in the reluctance of his support for Cromwell, remains almost a sine qua non for anyone who discusses the poem, but I shall try to show that by 1650 Marvell had become completely Cromwellian, and that his theme was Cromwell's election as the constitutional dictator of England, in accordance with the popular concept of the dux bellorum which permitted dictators at the commencement of new empires. My second proposal is that the undeniable impartiality of Marvell's tone and stance derives not from a neutral political attitude, but from the careful rhetorical procedure which Marvell adopted in order to make his theme persuasive to a doubtful audience. The ode is a political or deliberative oration, written to the pattern of such speeches formulated by the classical orators. Deliberative speeches generally dealt with a “difficult” subject, the genus admirabile causae, and frequently began with an insinuatio—a device employed when the opinion of the audience was considered to be prejudiced against the case. But before beginning an examination of the poem and identifying the source of Marvell's brilliant “insinuation,” it would be well to outline very briefly the state of English loyalism in 1649-50, which lends credence to Marvell's position in the ode, and helps to explain how it was possible for a man of integrity to hold opinions so contrary to his earlier royalism.
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1 The major essays in recent years have been Cleanth Brooks, “Literary Criticism,” in English Institute Essays 1946 (New York, 1947), pp. 127-158; and his “Criticism and Literary History: Marvell's Horatian Ode,” SR, lv (1947), 199-222; and his “A Note on the Limits of ‘History’ and the Limits of ‘Criticism’,” SR, lxi (1953), 129-135; Douglas Bush, “Marvell's Horatian Ode,” SR, lx (1952), 363-376; L. D. Lerner, “Andrew Marvell: An Horatian Ode . . ., ” in Interpretations, ed. John Wain (London, 1955); Lawrence W. Hyman, “Politics and Poetry in Andrew Marvell,” PMLA, lxxiii (Dec. 1958), 475-479; the exception to the usual line is W. R. Orwen, “A Study of Marvell's Horatian Ode,” unpub. Syracuse diss., DA, xvi, 1907, but his thesis that the ode is a “mirror” against absolutism is untenable. J. A. Mazzeo, “Marvell's Machiavellian Cromwell,” JHI, xxi (Jan.-March 1960), 1-17, is the first to state clearly that the tension of the ode stems not from emotional conflict but from “the poet's deliberately maintained intellectual attitude to historical and political events,” and he would be correct in pointing to Machiavelli's influence if he made it less direct; but what vitiates Mazzeo's approach are not chiefly Hans Baron's objections (“Marvell's ‘An Horatian Ode’ and Machiavelli,” JHI, xxi, July-Sept. 1960, 450-451) but the fact that Marvell is everywhere a Christian poet, and would have detested the association with Machiavelli (or with Hobbes, for whose influence a good case could also be made). It was an enemy who called him “a notable English Italo-Machavillian” (see The Poems & Letters of Andrew Marvell, ed. H. M. Margoliouth, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1952, Vol. I, p. xiv; this ed. has been used for all quotations from the ode). Marvell would have appealed to Christian casuistry, not overtly to Machiavelli, although he had no doubt read him carefully.
2 Ad Herennium iii.iv.7 and i.vi.9-11. The Loeb Library eds. have been used for the discussion of rhetoric in this essay. Other deliberative features are the ode's moderate manner; its orientation toward the future position of Cromwell in the state; its concern with the advantages and expediency of the dictatorship, and with national security; Quintilian (Inst. Or. iii.viii.47) also reckoned the crowning of Julius Caesar a deliberative topic. However, Aristotle (Rhetoric i.ix.36), Cicero (De. Or. ii.lxxxi.333) and Quintilian (Inst. Or. iii.iv.16 and vii.4.28) were agreed that deliberative and epideictic oratory had much in common, and that their topics were not mutually exclusive. I would not, therefore, quarrel with readers who, because of the poem's title, would prefer to read the ode as a panegyric oration with a deliberative intent, rather than as a deliberative oration in which “extensive sections are often devoted to praise or censure” (Ad. Heren., trans. Harry Caplan, iii.viii.15). D. A. G. Hinks, “Tria Genera Causarum,” Classical Quarterly, xxx (1936), 170-176, discusses the difficulties of making distinctions between deliberative and epideictic.
3 The texts of the Council oath and the Engagement Act are in The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, ed. S. R. Gardiner, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1906), pp. 384-587; see also Gardiner's History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate 1649-1656 (London, 1903), i, 6-7, and Paul H. Hardacre, The Royalists During the Puritan Revolution (The Hague, 1956), pp. 65-66, 82-84. For a long discussion of the Engagers and their relation to royalist theory during the civil war, see my unpub. diss., “Andrew Marvell: Three Commonwealth Poems,” Johns Hopkins Univ., 1960, pp. 1-64. Perez Zagorin, A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (London, 1954), pp. 62-77, 121-131, has summarized some of the Engagers' pamphlets (although he does not mention the Engagement which precipitated them) but is surely wrong in calling their ideas the “unofficial theory of the commonwealth.” For a discussion of a satire on the Engagers and a list of some of their works, see my essay “The Case for Internal Evidence (10): The Date of John Tatham's The Distracted State” Bull. New York Public Library, lxiv (Jan. 1960), 29-40.
4 John Dury, A Declaration of John Durie (London, 1660), p. 18.
5 N. W., A Discourse Concerning the Engagement: or, the Northern Subscribers Plea (London, 1650), p. 4.
6 Of the Confusions and Revolutions of Goverments [sic] (London, 1649), pp. 109-110; see also pp. 98-99. The most sustained account of the workings of providence in history was Marchamont Nedham's The Case of the Common-Wealth of England Stated which went into two eds. in 1650.
7 Lucan, Pharsalia: or the Civil-Wars of Rome, trans. Thomas May, 4th ed. (London, 1650), p. 8. Marvell's “Removing from the Wall” is closer to Lucan's “Deripuit sacris adfixa penatibus arma” than May's “temples.”
8 Lucan, De Bello Civili i.225-227: “‘Hic,’ ait, ‘hic pacem temerataque iura relinquo; / Te, Fortuna, sequor. Procul hinc iam foedera sunto; / Credidimus satis his, utendum est iudice bellorsquo;.”
9 Ad. Heren, iii.ii.3 and vi.10, and viii.15; Cicero, De Inven. ii.liii.159 ff.; Quintilian, Inst. Or. iii.vii.15.
10 Hyman, op. cit., p. 476.
11 Cicero, De Inven, ii.liii.160-162 discusses both natural and positive law under the heading “Justice” when he is expanding the honorable ends of a deliberative discourse.
12 Scotlands Holy War (London, 1651), pp. 77-78; see also J. Drew, The Northern Subscribers Plea Vindicated (London, 1651), p. 4.
13 In Somers Tracts, ed. Walter Scott (London, 1809-15), vi, 157.
14 Discolliminium (London, 1650), p. 13. The tract is signed “B” but is generally attributed to Ward.
15 See Lester K. Born, “The Perfect Prince According to the Latin Panegyrists,” Amer. Jour. Philology, lv (1934), 20-35, and “The Perfect Prince: A Study in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Ideals,” Speculum, iii (1928), 470-504; Felix Gilbert, “The Humanist Concept of the Prince and The Prince of Machiavelli,” Jour. Mod. Hist., xi (1939), 462-464 and 474-478.
16 Virgilio Malvezzi, Considerations upon the Lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, trans. Robert Gentilis (London, 1650), p. 193. See also Cassius Dio, Roman History, trans. Earnest Cary, Loeb Library (London, 1914), i, 95; Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour, Everyman Library (London, 1907), p. 285; Giovanni Botero, The Reason of State, trans. P. J. and D. P. Waley (London, 1956), pp. 34-36; Pedro Ribadeneyra, Religion and the Virtues of the Christian Prince, trans. G. H. Moore (Chevy Chase, Md., 1949), pp. 317-325.
17 Henry Leslie, The Martyrdome of King Charles, or his Conformity with Christ in His Sufferings (Hage, 1649), pp. 11-12; cf. [John Allington], The Impudent Usurper (London, 1660), p. 16: “Kings and Princes are but his actors, For, when he pleaseth, they must shift the stage.” See also A Martyr of the People, or, the Murder'd King (London, 1649), p. 1; Salmasius, Defensio Regia pro Caroli I (n.p., 1649), p. 338; J. B[irkenhead], Loyalties Tears Flowing after the Bloud of the Royall Sufferer Charles I (n.p., 1649), p. 7.
18 The Bounds & Bonds of Publique Obedience (London, 1649), pp. 36-37; generally attributed to Francis Rous, this tract is almost certainly by Ascham. See my diss., pp. 21-23.
19 Rights of the Kingdom (London, 1649), sig. 4v. Dury in his Declaration, pp. 10-11, comments on Charles's trial: “I made it a serious part of my work, first to prevent the sentence, & secondly the execution of it; in the first to save his reputation, in the second his life. For I did conscionably judge myself bound to do for him, all which I could or should have done for mine own Father if he had been in his case.” Cf. also Lord Fairfax's lines on the execution, quoted in M. A. Gibb, The Lord General (London, 1938), p. 216: “Oh, let that day from time be blotted quite, / And let belief of't in next age be waved. / In deepest silence th'act concealed might, / So that the Kingdom's credit might be saved. / But if the Power Divine permitted this, / His Will's the law and ours must acquiesce.”
20 George Yule, The Independents in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1958), p. 129.
21 Ad. Heren. iii.x.18.
22 Op. cit., p. 68.
23 Six Books of the Commonwealth, trans. M. J. Tooley (Oxford, n. d.), pp. 110-111.
24 Of the Law of Warre and Peace (London, 1654), p. 162.
25 De Corpore Politico (London, 1650), p. 11. Cf. A Briefe Resolution of that Grand Case of Conscience (London, 1650), p. 4: “The Kings yielding is an absolution of the Subjects from the allegiance formerly due to Him by them, and so makes it lawfull for them to yield the same to another.”
26 The Historie of Guicciardin, trans. Geffray Fenton, 3rd ed. (London, 1618), p. 53. To adapt words which Marvell later used of Fairfax, both Ferdinand and Charles may be said to “make their Destiny their Choice” (“Upon Appleton House,” line 744).
27 Of the Confusions, p. 102. Other references to Ferdinand occur in A Reply to a Paper of Dr. Sandersons, Containing a Censure of Mr. A. A. his Book (London, 1650), pp. 7-8; A Combate betweene Two Seconds (London, 1649), p. 12; Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and Nations, trans. Basil Kennett, 4th ed. (London, 1729), p. 726, note 3.
28 See esp. Lucius Julius Florus, Epitome of Roman History, i.i.7 ff., who shows that each of the Roman kings contributed to Rome's future greatness, and that the wrongs perpetrated by Tarquin first inflamed the Romans with a desire for liberty.
29 Livy, Annals i.lv.6; Servius, Comm. in Verg. Aen. viii. 345; Arnobius of Sicca, The Case against the Pagans vi.7; Cassius Dio, op. cit., i, 77 (Zonaras' epitome, vii.11); Isidoras of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum xv.ii.31. Margoliouth annotates the passage from Pliny and Varro.
30 W. C. Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, Mass., 1937-47), ii, 81-82, 275. Hereafter cited as Abbott.
31 Zera S. Fink, The Classical Republicans (Evanston, Ill., 1945). See index under “dictator” and “law-giver.”
32 Samuel Kliger, The Goths in England (Cambridge, Mass., 1952). See index under “dux bellorum.”
33 John Cook, King Charls His Case (London, 1649), p. 9. See also, e.g., Nathaniel Homes, A Sermon Preached before... Thomas Foote, Lord Maior . . . upon the General Day of Thanksgiving, October 8, 1650 (London, 1650), p. 32.
34 John Nickolls, ed., Original Letters and Papers of State Addressed to Oliver Cromwell (London, 1743), pp. 6, 22-24.
35 Ibid., p. 33.
36 Abbott, ii, 45.
37 Political Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. W. Walter Wilkins (London, 1860), I, 83.
38 Abbott, ii, 46.
39 Joseph Frank, “Some Clippings from the Pre-Restoration Newspaper,” HLQ, xxii (August 1959), 353.
40 Anarchia Anglicana: or the History of Independency. The Second Part (n.p., 1649), p. 203.
41 Abbott, ii, 250; also p. 43 for a comment by the Frenchman Graymond: “They designate Cromwell as the author of the great design and the reformer of the universe.”
42 Gardiner, Hist. of Commonwealth, i, 244-246.
43 Abbott, ii, 264.
44 Politica, trans. Jowett, in Works, ed. W. D. Ross (Oxford, 1952), iii.iv.1277b. See also Cicero, De Legibus, trans. C. W. Keyes, Loeb Library (London, 1951), iii.ii.5: “For the man who rules efficiently must have obeyed others in the past, and the man who obeys dutifully appears fit at some later time to be a ruler.” The sententia was first attributed to Solon; see Diogenes Laertius, “Solon” in Lives of Eminent Philosophers i.60; also Plato, Laws vi.76E; Menander, trans. F. G. Allinson, Loeb Library (London, 1930), p. 515 (Fragment 640K); Seneca, “De Ira,” in Moral Essays ii.xv.4; Thomas à Kempis, De Imitatione Christi, Part i, ch. 20; Erasmus, Adagia in Latine and English (Aberdeen, 1622), p. 14; Thomas Starkey, England in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth, ed. J. M. Cowper, EETS (London, 1878), Part ii, p. 3; John Florio, His Firste Fruites (London, 1578), p. 28r (misnumbered 26); S. Guazzo, The Civile Conversation, intr. Sir Edward Sullivan, Tudor Translations (London, 1925), ii, 97; John Milton, Paradise Regained iii.195-196; Andrew Ramsay, The Travels of Cyrus, 3rd ed. (London, 1728), i, 5-6; Pufendorf, op. cit., p. 734, note 7.
45 (London, 1654), p. 19.
46 A Declaration, p. 6. The summary is made from pp. 1-9.
47 Scotlands Holy War (London, 1651), p. 64. On the English side, see also A Declaration of the English Army now in Scotland, Touching the Justness and Necessity of their Present Proceedings in that Nation (London, 1650); A Short Reply unto a Declaration . . . Together with a Vindication of the Declaration of the Army of England (London, 1650); A Pertinent and Profitable Meditation, upon the History of Pekah (London, 1650); The English Banner of Truth Displayed: or. the State of this Present Engagement against Scotland (London, 1650). The English army's declaration was so well known that at least two or three writers, and The Perfect Diurnal for 22-29 July 1650 merely refer to its arguments as so familiar that they do not bear repetitition. The English case gained much popular support from the publication of Collonel Greys Portmanteau Opened (London, 1650). The Scottish case was well put by William Prynne, Sad and Serious Considerations Touching the Invasive War against our Presbyterian Protestant Brethren in Scotland (n.p., 1650).
48 E. E. Duncan-Jones, “Notes on Marvell's Poems,” N&Q, cxcviii (1953), 431, quotes an example from Fulke Greville's Mustapha; Patrick Cruttwell, The Shakespearean Moment (New York, 1955), p. 195, quotes Clarendon's History; L. Proudfoot, “Marvell: Sallust and the Horatian Ode,” N&Q, cxcvi (1951), 434, finds a good “source” in Bellum Catilinae ii.3-6
49 The Historie of Great Britaine, 3rd ed. (London, 1632), p. 938.
50 The Loyall Convert (London, 1644), p. 26. Another royalist example is Robert Sanderson, Lectures on Conscience and Human Law [1647], trans. Christopher Wordsworth (Lincoln, 1877), p. 139.
51 Respublica Anglicana [1650] (n.p.; Spenser Society 1883), p. 43.
52 Of the Confusions, p. 98.
53 The High Court of Justice; or Cromwells New Slaughter House in England [Hist. of Independency, Part III] (n.p., 1651), p. 3.
54 Compendium of Roman History, trans. Frederick W. Shipley, Loeb Library (London, 1924), ii.lvii.
55 Raleigh, History of the World (London, 1677), p. 109; [Francis Rous], The Lawfulnes of Obeying the Present Government (London, 1650), p. 7; A Combate betweene Two Seconds, p. 7; cf. Richard Saunders, Plenary Possession Makes a Lawful Power (London, 1651), p. 17. Also Ascham, Of the Confusions, pp. 21, 108; Bounds & Bonds, pp. 23-24; M. H., The Right of Dominion (London, 1655), pp. 45-47; The Exercitation Answered (London, 1650), pp. 47-49.
56 The Case of the Common-Wealth of England Stated (London, 1650), p. 6.
57 Quoted by Yule, The Independents, p. 64. Walker stole the metaphor from Cleveland's The Character of a London-Diurnall.
58 The Poems & Letters, i, 3.
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