He was one of the few who mingled in that society, and escaped its contamination, and who, "Amidst the wavering days of sin, Kept himself icy chaste and pure." The tone and temper of his mind may be most fitly expressed in his own paraphrase of Horace:-- "Climb at Court for me that will, Tottering Favor's pinnacle; All I seek is to lie still! Settled in some secret nest, In calm leisure let me rest; And, far off the public stage, Pass away my silent age.
Thus, when, without noise, unknown, I have lived out all my span, I shall die without a groan, An old, honest countryman.
Who, exposed to other's eyes, Into his own heart ne'er pries, Death's to him a strange surprise." He died suddenly in 1678, while in attendance at a popular meeting of his old constituents at Hull.

His health had previously been remarkably good; and it was supposed by many that he was poisoned by some of his political or clerical enemies.

His monument, erected by his grateful constituency, bears the following inscription:-- "Near this place lyeth the body of Andrew Marvell, Esq., a man so endowed by Nature, so improved by Education, Study, and Travel, so consummated by Experience, that, joining the peculiar graces of Wit and Learning, with a singular penetration and strength of judgment; and exercising all these in the whole course of his life, with an unutterable steadiness in the ways of Virtue, he became the ornament and example of his age, beloved by good men, feared by bad, admired by all, though imitated by few; and scarce paralleled by any.

But a Tombstone can neither contain his character, nor is Marble necessary to transmit it to posterity; it is engraved in the minds of this generation, and will be always legible in his inimitable writings, nevertheless.

He having served twenty years successfully in Parliament, and that with such Wisdom, Dexterity, and Courage, as becomes a true Patriot, the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, from whence he was deputed to that Assembly, lamenting in his death the public loss, have erected this Monument of their Grief and their Gratitude, 1688." Thus lived and died Andrew Marvell.