Andrew Marvell - Prose Works

Prose Works

Marvell also wrote anonymous prose satires criticizing the monarchy and Catholicism, defending Puritan dissenters, and denouncing censorship.

The Rehearsal Transpros'd, an attack on Samuel Parker, was published in two parts in 1672 and 1673.

In 1676, Mr. Smirke; or The Divine in Mode, a work critical of intolerance within the Church of England, was published together with a "Short Historical Essay, concerning General Councils, Creeds, and Impositions, in matters of Religion."

Marvell's pamphlet An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England, published in late 1677, claimed that:

John Kenyon described it as "one of the most influential pamphlets of the decade" and G. M. Trevelyan called it: "A fine pamphlet, which throws light on causes provocative of the formation of the Whig party".

A 1678 work published anonymously ("by a Protestant") in defense of John Howe against the attack of his fellow-dissenter, the severe Calvinist Thomas Danson, is also probably by Marvell. Its full title is Remarks upon a late disingenuous discourse, writ by one T.D. under the pretence de causa Dei, and of answering Mr. John Howe's letter and postscript of God's prescience, &c., affirming, as the Protestant docrine, that GOd doth by efficacious influence universally move and determine men to all their actions, even to those that are most wicked.