Note 1 — Chapter IV

96:1 See The Unreformed House of Commons, by Edward Porritt, vol. i. p. 51. Marvell’s old enemy, Parker, Bishop of Oxford, in his History of his own Time, composed after Marvell’s death, reviles his dead antagonist for having taken this payment which, the bishop says, was made by a custom which “had a long time been antiquated and out of date.” “Gentlemen,” says the bishop, “despised so vile a stipend,” yet Marvell required it “for the sake of a bare subsistence, although in this mean poverty he was nevertheless haughty and insolent.” In Parker’s opinion poor men should be humble.