Andrew Marvell
On 21 February 1653, Milton recommended Andrew Marvell for a position with the Commonwealth's Council of State as his assistant after his previous assistant died. It is uncertain when the two first met, but Marvell knew Milton's works and included similar themes within his own poetry a few years prior. Milton liked Marvell, and in his recommendation describes Marvell as
a man whom both by report, & converse I have had with him, of singular desert for the state to make us of; who also offers himselfe, if there by any imployment for him... if upon the death of Mr. Wakerly the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistant in the performance of my place (though for my part I find noe encumberances of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I much confesse, in my Condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for them to find a Man soe fit every way for the purpose as this Gentleman
The Council did not accept Marvell, and they instead made Philip Meadows, a diplomat, assistant to Milton. By September 1657, Marvell was finally allowed to be Milton's assistant, and the two become close. During this time, John Dryden was employed in the same office and, according to Barbara Lewalski, it was "A remarkable happenstance, that the three best poets of the age should be together at the same time in Cromwell's bureaucracy!"
Read more about this topic: John Milton's Relationships, Friendship
Famous quotes by andrew marvell:
“Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball:
And tear our pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“To make a final conquest of all me,
Love did compose so sweet an enemy,
In whom both beauties to my death agree,
Joining themselves in fatal harmony;
That while she with her eyes my heart does bind,
She with her voice might captivate my mind.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“For I so truly thee bemoane,
That I shall weep though I be Stone:
Until my Tears, still drooping, wear
My breast, themselves engraving there.
There at me feet shalt thou be laid,
Of purest Alabaster made:
For I would have thine Image be
White as I can, though not as Thee.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)