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Pope, who lived near enough to be well informed, relates in Spence's memorials, that he died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that indigence, and its concomitants, forrow and defpondency, preffed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate caufe might bring him to the grave.

Of the poems which the late collection admits, the longeft is the Poet's Complaint of his Mufe, part of which I do not understand; and in that which is lefs obfcure I find little to commend. The language is often grofs, and the numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cultivated verfification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His principal power was in moving the paffions, to which Dryden * in his latter years left an illuftrious teftimony. He appears by fome of his verfes to have been a zealous royalift and had what was in thofe times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.

* In his preface to Frefnoy's Art of Painting. Orig. Ediz

WALLER

WALL ER.

E

DMUND WALLER was born on the third

of March, 1605, at Colfhill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Efquire, of Agmondefham in Buckinghamshire, whofe family was originally a branch of the Kentifh 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 thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thoufand at the prefent time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eaton; 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 Firft, where he heard a very remarkable converfation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who feems to have been well informed

informed of facts, though he may fometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably certain.

"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, "and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham, ftanding behind "his Majefty's chair; and there happened fomething "extraordinary," continues this writer," in the con"verfation those prelates had with the king, on which "Mr. Waller did often reflect. His Majesty asked the "bishops, "My Lords, cannot I take my fubjects money, when I want it, without all this formality of parliament?" The bishop of Durham readily anfwered, God forbid, Sir, but you should: you "are the breath of our noftrils.' Whereupon the "King turned and said to the bishop of Winchester, "Well, my Lord, what fay you?" Sir,' replied "the bishop, I have no skill to judge of parliamen66 tary cafes.' The King anfwered, "No put-offs, "my Lord; anfwer me presently." Then, Sir,' "faid he, I think it is lawful for you to take my "brother Neale's money; for he offers it.' Mr. Waller "faid, the company was pleased with this answer, and "the wit of it seemed to affect the King; for, a cer"tain lord coming in foon after, his Majefty cried

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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 so much "wit.'"Why "Why then," fays the King, "do you not "Hg 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 in his works, on "the Prince's Efcape at St. Andero;" a piece which juftifies the obfervation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity

like instinct, a ftyle which perhaps will never be obíolete; and that, "were we to judge only by the word"ing, we could not know what was wrote at twenty, " and what at fourfcore." His verfification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his last performance. By the perufal of Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo, to which, as Dryden relates, he confeffed himfelf indebted for the fmoothnefs of his numbers, and by his own nicety of obfervation, he had already formed fuch

*

fyftem 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 ruggednefs of his age; but what was acquired by Denham, was inherited by Waller.

The next poem, of which the fubject seems to fix the time, is fuppofed by Mr. Fenton to be the Addrefs 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 she 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 fleadiness with which the King received the news in the chapel, deferved indeed to be refcued from oblivion.

Neither of thefe pieces that feem to carry their own dates, could have been the fudden effufion of fancy. In the verfes on the Prince's efcape, the prediction of his marriage with the princefs of France muft have been written after the event; in the other, the promises of the King's kindness to the defcendants of Buckingham,

*Preface to his Fables. Orig. Edit.

which could not be properly praifed till it had appeared by its effects, fhew that time was taken for revifion and improvement. It is not 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 heirefs in the city, whom the intereft 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 mildnefs, and dull good-nature, fuch as excites rather tenderness than efteem, and fuch as, though always treated with kindnefs, is never honoured or admired.

Yet he defcribes Sachariffa as a fublime predominating beauty, of lofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather than fondnefs, whofe chains he wishes, though in vain, to break, and whose presence is wine that inflames to madness,

His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of boafting its influence; fhe was VOL. II.

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