He rarely comes to the surface.

Though both an author and a member of Parliament, not a trace of personal vanity is noticeable, and vanity is a quality of great assistance to the biographer.

That Marvell was a strong, shrewd, capable man of affairs, with enormous powers of self-repression, his Hull correspondence clearly proves, but what more he was it is hard to say.

He rarely spoke during his eighteen years in the House of Commons.

It is impossible to doubt that such a man in such a place was, in Mr.Disraeli's phrase, a "personage." Yet when we look for recognition of what we feel sure was the fact, we fail to find it.