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"that, which should make him be applauded, "he never laid the bufinefs of the Houfe to "heart, being a vain and empty, though a "witty, man."

Of his infinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe that the truth is told. Afcham, in his elegant defcription of those whom in modern language we term Wits, fays, that they are open flatterers, and privy mockers. Waller fhewed a little of both, when, upon fight of the Dutchess of Newcastle's verses on the death of a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compofitions to have written them and being charged with the exorbitance of his adulation, answered, that "nothing was too much to "be given, that a lady might be faved from "the difgrace of fuch a vile performance." This however was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation from truth: had his hypocrify been confined to fuch transactions, he might have been forgiven, though not praised; for who forbears to flatter an author or a lady?

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his refolution, he experienced

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rienced the natural effect, by lofing the efteem of every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from Charles the Second, who delighted in his company, hé obtained only the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the fafety of Hampden's fon.

As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connection with Hampden, for whose fake he profecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the invective which he pronounced on that occafion was fo popular, that twenty thousand copies are faid by his biographer to have been fold in one day.

It is confeffed that his faults ftill left him many friends, at leaft many companions. His convivial power of pleafing is univerfally acknowledged; but those who converfed with him intimately, found him not only paffionate, efpecially in his old age, but refentful; fo that the interpofition of friends was fometimes neceffary.

His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the tranf lation of Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added his help to that of Cowley in the original draught of the Rehearfal,

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree little less than criminal, was either not conftant or not fuccefsful; for, having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred pounds a year in the time of James the First, and augmented at least by one wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of the Revolution, an income of not more than twelve or thirteen hundred; which, when the different value of money is reckoned, will be found perhaps not more than a fourth part of what he once poffeffed.

Of this diminution, part was the confequence of the gifts which he was forced to fcatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the detection of his plot; and if his eftate, as is related in his Life, was fequeftered, he had probably contracted debts when

when he lived in exile; for we are told, that at Paris he lived in fplendor, and was the only Englishman, except the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table.

His unlucky plot compelled him to fell a thousand a year; of the wafte of the reft there is no account, except that he is confeffed by his biographer to have been a bad œconomift. He feems to have deviated from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a squanderer in his last.

Of his courfe of ftudies, or choice of books, nothing is known more than that he profeffed himself unable to read Chapman's tranflation of Homer without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a poet is contained in his declaration, that he would "blot from his works any line that did not "contain fome motive to virtue."

THE characters, by which Waller intended to diftinguish his writing, are spritelinefs and dignity; in his fmaller pieces, he endeavours to be gay; in the larger, to be great. Of his airy and light productions,

the chief fource is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence which has defcended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly occafional, and his addreffes perfonal, he was not fo liberally fupplied with grand as with foft images; for beauty is more eafily found than maguanimity.

The delicacy, which he cultivated, re ftrains him to a certain nicety and caution, even when he writes upon the flightest matter. He has, therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlefque, and feldom any thing lu dicrous or familiar. He feems always to do his beft; though his fubjects are often unworthy of his care. It is not easy to think without fome contempt on an author, who is growing illuftrious in his own opinion by verses, at one time," To a Lady, who can do any "thing, but fleep, when the pleafes;" at another, "To a lady who can fleep when the pleaf"es;" now, “To a Lady, on her paffing "through a crowd of people;" then, “On a "braid of divers colours woven by four Ladies;'

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On a tree cut in paper;" or, "To a Lady, from whom he received the copy of verfes

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