"The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers": Marvell's portrait of tender conscience

Papers on Language and Literature, Summer 2003 by Samuels, Peggy

The chariot wheels of the nymph's eyes in this stanza resemble an image of a wheel with eyes, used by the Norwich Presbyterian, John Carter, minister of St. Peter Mancroft, in a shocking election-day sermon of June 22, 1647. According to John T. Evans, Carter "lashed out at the magistrates with such embittered and astonishingly frank criticism that many an alderman must have winced" (167). Speaking on Galatians 4:16-"Am I therefore your enemy, because I tell you the truth?"-Carter boldly positions the magistrates as the enemies of Christ for their delays in instituting the Presbyterian form of government. Carter had already been involved in the earlier conflicts between Presbyterians and Independents and had been mentioned by name in Vox Populi as one whose machinations on behalf of the Presbyterian party in Norwich were in fact being set in motion by unnamed powerful men in London: "Mr Carter did alledge that they were advised by some great persons above, vix., from London to further this Petition or Remonstrance, and they had lately written unto them, why are your chariot wheels so long a comming?" (8). This section is set in bold and clearly marks Carter's connections to London as a particular affront. The chariot wheel was earlier used as a kind of code word for the Presbyterian program of reformation of church, state and citizens (Vicars Schismatic 22). After Vox Populi used the image, it gained the added resonance of an accusation that London Presbyterians are "behind" the local machinations of Presbyterians like Carter. By using the image of a wheel as the centerpiece of his public lecture to the citizens, ministers, and magistrates of Norwich, Carter was defending the national program to institute a conservative Presbyterian settlement of the kingdom.

The speech, published in June 1647 as The Wheel turned by a Voice from the Throne of Glory, appeared with the wheel as its frontispiece (Figure 1). Carter gathered associations for the wheel by the conference of two scriptural places: Proverbs 20:26 ("Scatter the Wicked, O let the great wheels turn over them") and Ezekiel's chariot. In Carter's sermon, the wheel from Proverbs, scattering the wicked, and as divine as Ezekiel's chariot, comes to stand in for the British kingdom as a set of interlocking wheels, all driven ultimately by God. In his own iconographical gloss on the image, Carter explains that the wheels are all "resonable creatures, as kingdoms, Common Wealths, Citys, Churches; which are societies of men; kings, Princes, Magistrates, chief Captains, Armies, Ministers, preachers of the Gospel, and all people in their several places: who ever hath any employment under God is a wheel in the chariot of his providence" (59). Using the wheel as the dominant conceit in his lecture, Carter vehemently decries the civil magistrates, who have delayed in reorganizing the church and paused in executing justice on sabbath-breakers, owners of ale-houses, and other transgressors:

Oh what hopes have we had of many Magistrates at their first coming on! In the beginning of their office how have the wheels rattled, how nimbly have they turned, how forward and active have they been in reforming abuses, and doing for the good of the City? But before their year hath come out, yea in a little time all our hopes have come to nothing. (100)