the navy, and the civil service, quite outside of what perhaps may be fairly called the main currents of the national life.  Nonconformists venerated their own divines, were reared in their own academies and colleges, read their own books, went, when the modified law permitted it, to their own conventicles in back streets, and made it their boast that they had never entered their parish churches, for the upkeep of which they were compelled to subscribe—­save for the purpose of being married.  The nation suffered by reason of this complete severance.  Trade excepted, there was no community of interest between Church and Dissent.  Sobriety, gravity, a decent way of life, the sense of religious obligation (even when united with the habit of extempore prayer, and a hereditary disrespect for bishops’ aprons), are national assets, as the expression now goes, which cannot be disregarded with impunity.

The Conventicle Act Marvell refers to was a stringent measure, imposing pecuniary fines upon any persons of sixteen years of age or upwards who “under pretence of religion” should be present at any meeting of more than five persons, or more than those of the household, “in other manner than allowed by the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England.”  Heavier fines were imposed upon the preachers.  The poet Waller, who was “nursed in Parliaments,” having been first returned from Amersham in 1621, made a very sensible remark on the second reading:  “Let them alone and they will preach against each other; by this Bill they will incorporate as being all under one calamity."[145:1] But by 144 to 78 the Bill was read, though it did not become law until the following session.  An indignant Member of Parliament once told Cromwell that he would take the “sense” of the House against some proposal.  “Very well,” said Cromwell, “you shall take the ‘sense’ of the House, and I will take the ‘nonsense,’ and we will see who tells the most votes.”

In February 1670 the king opened a new session, and in March Marvell wrote a private letter to a relative at Bordeaux, in which he “lends his mind out,” after a fashion forbidden him in his correspondence with his constituents:—­

“DEAR COUSIN,—­ ...  You know that we having voted the King, before Christmas, four hundred thousand pounds, and no more; and enquiring severely into ill management, and being ready to adjourn ourselves till February, his Majesty, fortified by some undertakers of the meanest of our House, threw up all as nothing, and prorogued us from the first of December till the fourteenth of February.  All that interval there was great and numerous caballing among the courtiers.  The King also all the while examined at council the reports from the Commissioners of Accounts, where they were continually discountenanced, and treated rather as offenders than judges.  In this posture we met, and the King, being exceedingly necessitous for money, spoke to us stylo minaci et imperatorio;