fling, as that upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few lines written in the Dutchess's Tao, which he is faid by Fenton to have kept a fummer under correction. It hap pened to Waller, as to others, that his fuccefs was not always in proportion to his labour.

Of these petty compofitions, neither the beauties nor the faults deferve much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, that they are lefs hyperbolical than thofe of fome other poets. Waller is not always at the laft gafp; he does not die of a frown, nor live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many trifles. Little things are made too important; and the Empire of Beauty is reprefented as exerting its influence further than can be allowed by the multiplicity of human paffions, and the variety of human wants. Such books, therefore, may be confidered as fhewing the world under a false appearance, and, fo far as they obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading expectation, and mifguiding practice.

VOL. I.

D d

Of

Of his nobler and more weighty perfor mances, the greater part is panegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is obferved by his imitator, Lord Lanfdowne:

No fatyr ftalks within the hallow'd ground,
But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;
Glory and arms and love are all the found.

}

In the first poem, on the danger of the Prince on the coast of Spain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the beginning; and the laft paragraph, on the Cable, is in part ridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid. The poem, however, is fuch as may be justly praised, without much allowance for the state of our poetry and language at that time.

The two next poems are upon the King's behaviour at the death of Buckingham, and upon his Navy.

He has, in the first, used the Pagan deities great propriety:

with

'Twas want of fuch a precedent as this

Made the old Heathen frame their gods amifs.

In the poem on the Navy, thofe lines are very noble which fuppofe the King's power fecure against a fecond Deluge; fo noble, that it were almost criminal to remark the mistake of centre for furface, or to fay that the empire of the fea would be worth little if it were not that the waters terminate in land.

The poem upon Sallee has forcible fentiments; but the conclufion is feeble. That on the Repairs of St Paul's has fomething vulgar and obvious; fuch as the mention of Amphion; and fomething violent and harsh, as

So all our minds with his confpire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface
Those state-obfcuring fheds, that like a chain
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again :
Which the glad faint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his facred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide

The creeping ivy from his injur'd fide.

Of the two laft couplets, the first is extravagant, and the fecond mean.

20 His praise of the Queen is too much fezaggerated; and the thought, that fhe "faves

lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by lopping the limb," prefents nothing to the mind but difguft and horror.? badon&

Of the Battle of the Summer Iftands, it seems not easy to say whether it is intended to raife terror or merriment. The beginning is too fplendid for jeft, and the conclufion too light for ferioufnefs. The verfification is ftudied, the fcenes are diligently difplayed, and the images artfully amplified; but as it ends neither in joy nor forrow, it will fearcely be read a fecond time.

The Panegyrick upon Cromwell has obtained from the publick a very liberal dividend of praife, which however cannot be faid to have been unjuftly lavifhed; for fuch a eferies of verfes had rarely appeared before in the English language. Of the lines fome are grand, fome are graceful, and all are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought; but its great fault is the choice of its hero.

The

The poem of The War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and ftriking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The fucceeding parts are variegated with better paffages and worse. There is fomething too farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on, by faluting St. Lucar with cannon, to lambs awakening the lion by bleating. The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who were burnt in their fhip, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the Phoenix, becaufe he had fpices about him, nor expreffed their af- fection and their end by a conceit at once falfe and vulgar:

Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,
And now together are to afhes turn'd.

The verfes to Charles, on his Return, were doubtless intended to counterbalance the panegyrick on Cromwell. If it has been thought inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its deficience has been already remarked.