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WAL LE R.

EDMUND

MUND WALLER was born on the third of March, 1605, at Colfhill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Efquire, of Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, whofe family was originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in the fame county, and fifter to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.

His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him an yearly income of three thoufand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thousand at the present time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed afterwards to King's College in Cambridge. He was fent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his fixteenth, year, and frequented the court of James the First, where he heard a very remarkable converfation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who feems to have been well informed of facts, though he may fome

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"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Win chefter, and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham, ftanding behind his Majefty's chair; and "there happened fomething extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the conversation "those prelates had with the king, on which "Mr. Waller did often reflect. His majesty "afked the bifhops, "My lords, cannot I "take my fubjects money, when I want it, "without all this formality of parliament?" "The bishop of Durham readily answered, "God forbid, Sir, but you fhould: you are "the breath of our noftrils." Whereupon "the king turned and faid to the bishop of Winchester, "Well, my lord, what fay you?" Sir, replied the bishop, I have no fkill to judge of parliamentary cafes." The king anfwered, "No put-offs, my lord; " answer me presently." "Then, Sir, faid he, "I think it is lawful for you to take my bro"ther Neale's money; for he offers it." Mr. "Waller faid the company was pleased with "this answer, and the wit of it feemed to af

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fect the king; for, a certain lord coming in "foon after, his majesty cried out, "Oh, my "lord, they fay you lig with my lady." "No, Sir, fays his lordship in confufion, but I "like her company, because she has fo much "wit." Why then, fays the king, do you not lig with my lord of Winchester there? Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears firft in his works,

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piece which juftifies the observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a ftile which perhaps will never be obsolete; and that, "were we to judge only by the wording, we could not "know what was wrote at twenty, and what "at fourfcore." His verfification was in his firft effay, fuch as it appears in his last performance. By the perufal of Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo, to which, as Dryden relates, he confeffed himself indebted for the fmoothness of his numbers, and, by his own nicety of observation, he had already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured to improve. Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham, was inherited by Waller.

The next poem, of which the fubject feems to fix the time, is fuppofed by Mr. Fenton to be the Address to the Queen, which he confiders as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year. He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation's obligations to her frequent pregnancy, proves that it was written when he had brought many children. We have therefore no date of any other poetical production before that which the murder of the duke of Buckingham occafioned: the fteadiness with which the king received the news in the chapel, deferved indeed to be refcued from oblivion.

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Neither of thefe pieces feem to have been the fudden effufion of fancy. In one the prediction of the marriage with the princefs of France, which must have been written after the event; in the other, the promifes of the king's kindnefs to the defcendants of Buckingham, which could not be known till it had appeared by its effects; fhew that time was taken for revifion and improvement. It is not indeed known that they were published till they appeared long afterwards with other poems.

Waller was not one of thofe idolaters of praise who cultivate their minds at the expence of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he took care early to grow richer by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the interest of the court was employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a fon, who died young, and a daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer of Oxfordfhire, fhe died in childbed, and left him a widower of about five and twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself with another marriage.

Being too young to refift beauty, and probably too vain to think himself refiftible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and half ambitiously, upon the lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sachariffa is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latin appellation of fugar, and implies, if it means any thing, a fpiritlefs mildness, and dull good-nature, fuch as excites rather tenderness than esteem, and fuch as, though always

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