The _Horatian Ode_ was in this volume, and was printed from it in Thompson's edition of 1776.
What has become of this manuscript book? It has disappeared--destroyed, so we are led to believe, in a fit of temper by the angry and uncritical sea-captain.
This precious volume undoubtedly contained some poems by Marvell, and as his handwriting was both well known from many examples, and is highly characteristic, we may also be certain that the captain was not mistaken in his assertion that some of these poems were in Marvell's own handwriting. But, as ill-luck would have it, the volume also contained poems written at a later period and in quite another hand. Among these latter pieces were Addison's verses, _The Spacious Firmament on High_ and _When all thy Mercies, O my God_; Dr. Watts' paraphrase _When Israel freed from Pharaoh's Hand_; and Mallet's ballad _William and Margaret_. The two Addison pieces and the Watts paraphrase appeared for the first time in the _Spectator_, Nos. 453, 465, and 461, in 1712, and Mallet's ballad was first printed in 1724.
Still there these pieces were, in manuscript, in this volume, and as there were circumstances of mystification attendant upon their prior publication, what does the captain do but claim them all, _Songs of Zion_ and sentimental ballad alike, as Marvell's. This of course brought the critics, ever anxious to air their erudition, down upon his head, raised his anger, and occasioned the destruction of the book.
Mr. Grosart says that Captain Thompson states that the _Horatian Ode_ was in Marvell's handwriting. I cannot discover where this statement is made, though it is made of other poems in the volume, also published for the first time by the captain.
All, therefore, we know is that the Ode was first published in 1776 by an editor who says he found it copied in a book, subsequently destroyed, which contained (among other things) some poems written in Marvell's handwriting, and that this book was given to the editor by a grand-nephew of the poet.
Yet I imagine, poor as this evidence may seem to be, no student of Marvell's life and character (so far as his life reveals his character), and of his verse (so much of it as is positively known), wants more evidence to satisfy him that the _Horatian Ode_ is as surely Marvell's as the lines upon _Appleton House_, the _Bermudas_, _To his Coy Mistress_, and _The Garden_.