R.C.Trench (1807–86), who became Archbishop of Dublin, conceived of his anthology as supplementary to that of Palgrave. Although he included only three of Marvell's lyrics, they were indeed to become ‘household’ examples. The first edition omits any comment on ‘On a Drop of Dew.’
(a) Extract from A Household Book of English Poetry (1868), pp. 394, 398–9.
I have obtained room for these lines [‘Eyes and Tears’] by excluding another very beautiful poem by the same author, his ‘Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda.’ To this I was moved in part by the fact that the ‘Song’ has found its way into many modern collections; these lines, so far as I know, into none; in part by my conviction that we have here a poem which, though less popular than the Song,’ is of a still higher mood. If after this praise, these lines should, at the first perusal, disappoint a thoughtful reader, I would ask him to read them a second time, and, if needful, a third. Sooner or later they will reveal the depth and riches of meaning which under their unpretending forms lie concealed.
Marvell showed how well he understood what he was giving to the world in this ode, one of the least known but among the grandest which the English language possesses, when he called it ‘Horatian.’ In its whole treatment it reminds us of the highest to which the greatest Latin Artist in lyrical poetry did, when at his best, attain. To one unacquainted with Horace, this ode, not perhaps so perfect as his are in form, and with occasional obscurities of expression which Horace would not have left, will give a truer notion of the kind of greatness which he achieved than, so far as I know, could from any other poem in the language be obtained.
(b) Extract from the second revised edition (1870), pp. 402–3, 411–12. To the above note on the ‘Horatian Ode’ Trench added the following statement:
We can fix very accurately the time of its composition, namely, after Cromwell's return from the campaign in Ireland, after, too, he had been designated for the expedition to Scotland, but while as yet the ‘laureate wreath’ of Dunbar Field was unwon,—the summer, therefore of the year 1650. A little later the assurances of Cromwell's moderation could scarcely have been uttered. To understand this poem as at all its deserves to be understood, the reader must be fairly acquainted with the chief persons and events of our great Civil War; and the more familiar he is with these, the greater his admiration will be. It is worth while to compare it with Milton's panegyric of Cromwell at the close of his second Defensio Populi Anglicani.—l. 53–64: Lines which in the noble justice they do to a fallen enemy, and to the courage with which he met the worst extremities of fortune, are worthy to stand side by side with that immortal passage in which Horace celebrates the heroic fashion with which Cleopatra accepted the same (Carm. i. 37, 21–32).—l. 67–72: At the digging of the foundations of the Capitol at Rome a human head is reported to have been found, which was at once accepted as an augury that Rome should be the head of the world, and gave a name to the temple (Capitolium from caput) which was being reared (Livy, i. 55).
If the poem which has just gone before [Vaughan's ‘Retreat’] contains, at least in part, the undeveloped germ of Wordsworth's greatest Ode, this exquisite poem [‘On a Drop of Dew’] has also some prophecy of the same. Here too, as there, the poet dwells with a thankful gladness on those recollections of former heights which prompt the soul to an earnest effort to make those heights its own once more.