gine that the friendly ground will be hofpitable to Our remains; that the turf will there lie lighter upon us; and that our ashes will be guarded by the genius of the place.

66

In the fummer of 1668, having a fwelling in his legs, he went to Windfor with his fon-in-law, Dr. Birch, to confult Sir Charles Scarborough, who was there, in attendance, as first phyfician to king James the fecond. I am come (faid he) to you, as to an old friend as well as a phyfician, to ask you what this fwelling means. -"Why Sir,” replied Sir Charles, "your blood will run no longer." Waller received his fentence with ferenity,

66

and refignation.

In the autumn of that year his diftemper increased, he was confined to his bed, and he found his death aproaching. He prepared himself for the awful crifis; he defired Dr. Birch to adminifter the facrament to him, and his family to join with him in receiving it. He profeffed his faith in christianity with great earneftnefs and fervour; and told thofe around him an anecdote, which does honour to his eafy and focial hours; and his laft moments were well employed in relating it. "I remember (faid he) the duke of Buckingham once talked profanely before king Charles the fecond when I happened to be one of "the company.-I could not let his licentious irony pafs without a reproof. My lord, faid I, I am a great deal older than your grace; and I believe I "have heard more arguments for atheism than ever your grace did but I have lived long enough to "fee there is nothing in them; and fo I hope your grace will" Whatever the defects of Waller's life were, he fupported the laft fcene of it with propriety and dignity. He died on the twenty-firft of

66

66

October,

October, 1687, and was interred with his ancestors in the church-yard of Beconsfield. *

Many elegies were written on his death by his poetical cotemporaries. He had often caught infpiration in the bowers of Parnaffus; and his grave was fhaded with its laurels.

A fine monument was afterwards erected over it by his fon's executors. The Latin infcriptions upon it were written by Mr. Rymer, hiftoriographer to the Queen. As they have no force of compofition, and as they contain no material information but what will be found in this narrative, I fhall not obtrude them upon the reader. It will now be expected that I should fay fomething of his perfon and character.

The endowments of his mind were recommended by the graces of his form. Mankind are so subject to the fafcination of externals, that the effects of the moft elevated genius and virtue are greatly obftructed by perfonal difadvantages. Worth, covered by deformity gains upon us but by flow approaches,

He had by his first wife a fon and a daughter. The former died young; the latter was married to Mr. Dormer of Oxfordshire. By his fecond wife he had five fons, and eight daughters, most of whom survived him. The mind of Benjamin, his eldeft fon, was fo inferiour to that of his father, that he had not a common understanding. He was fent to New Jerfey in America. Edmund, our poet's fecond fon, inherited his eftate. This gentleman likewife wrote veries; but by the fpecimen of his poetry, which we have from the authour of Waller's Life, it appears that he only fancied that he had derived genius from his father. He died without iffue, and left the eftate to Edmund, the eldest fon of his brother, Dr. Stephen Waller, who was the poet's fourth fon, and a famous civilian. He was appointed one of the commiffioners for the union of the two kingdoms.

and

and must not expect to be generally well received till the world is convinced of its reality by repeated experience. But to him in whom nature hath united amiable qualities and great talents with perfonal elegance, we are immediately prepared to pay homage. While the eye furveys, the mind wishes to efteem, and to admire.

Waller's perfon was handfome and graceful. That delicacy of foul, which produces inftinctive propriety, gave him an eafy manner, which was improved, and finished by a polite education, and by a familiar intercourfe with the Great. The fymmetry of his features was dignified with a manly afpect; and his eye was animated with fentiment and poetry.

His elocution, like his verfe, was mufical and flowing. In the fenate, indeed, it often assumed a vigorous and majestick tone, which, it must be owned, is not a leading characteristick of his numbers.

He was fo happily formed for fociety, that his company was fought for by thofe who detefted his principles and his conduct. He must have had very engaging qualities who kept up an intimacy with people of two prejudiced, and exafperated parties; and who had the countenance of kings of very different tempers and characters. He was a favourite with the perfons of either fex of the times in which he lived, who were moft diftinguished for their rank, and for their genius. The mention of a Morley, a St. Evremond, a Dorfet, a Clarendon, and a Falkland, with whom he spent many of his focial hours, excludes a formal eulogium on his companionable ta lents. Let it fufice, therefore, to observe, that his converfation was chaftifed by politenefs, enriched by learning, and brightened by wit.

The warmth of his fancy, and the gaiety of his

difpofition, were ftrictly regulated by temperance and decorum. Like moft men of a fine imagination, he was a devotee to the fair fex: but his gallantry was not vitiated with debauchery; nor were his hours of relaxation and mirth prostituted to profaneness and infidelity. Irreligion and intemperance had not infected all ranks in Waller's time as they have now; but he had as much merit in avoiding the contagion of a profligate court, with which he had fuch familiar intercourfe, as we can ascribe to an individual of the present age, who mixes much with the world, and yet continues proof against its licentiousness. He rebuked the impious wit of the libertine even before a king who was deftitute of religion and principle; and who enjoyed a jeft upon that facred truth which it was his duty to defend and to maintain.

But his virtue was more theoretick than practical. It was of a delicate and tender make; formed for the quiet of the poetick fhade, and the eafe of fociety; not hardy and confirmed enough for a conflict with popular commotions. His behaviour on his trial was hypocritical, unmanly, and abject: yet the alarming occafion of i, on which but few would have acquitted themfelves with a determined fortitude, extenuates it in fome measure to candour and humanity; though he who had effectually reduced the difcipline of philofophy to practice, would rather have fuffered death than purchased life with the ignominy which it coft Waller. But let us recolle& that Providence is very rarely lavish of its extraor dinary gifts to one man. Let us not condemn him with untempered feverity, because he was not a prodigy which the world hath feldom feen; because his character comprifed not the poet, the orator, and the hero.

That.

That he greatly improved our language and verfification, and that his works gave a new æra to English poetry, was allowed by his cotemporaries, nor has it ever been difputed by good criticks. Dryden tells us he had heard Waller fay, that he owed the harmony of his numbers to Fairfax's tranflation of the Godfrey of Bulloigne. Whoever reads that tranflation, and compares it with our author's pɔetry, will fee in how rude a ftate English verfe was when Waller began to write, and what advantage it received from him. Perhaps more elegant language, and more harmonious numbers than his, would be expected even from a middling poet in this age of refinement: but fuch a writer would be as much inferiour to Waller in abfolute merit, as it is more difficult to attain new, than to copy paft excellence, as it is easier to imitate than to invent. A voyage to the West Indies, first achieved by Columbus, and the calculations of Newton, are now often made by the modern mariner and mathematician: but who refufes admiration to the inventor of fluxions, and to the discoverer of America?

Eafe, gallantry, and wit, are the principal confituents of his poetry. Though he is frequently plaintive with tenderness, and ferious with dignity. But impartiality must acknowledge that his mufe feldom reaches the 'ublime. She is characterised by the fofter graces, not by grandeur and majefty. It is her province to draw iportive or elegiack notes from the lyre; not to found the trumpet, and inflame the foul.

Hitherto we have remarked our author's beauties; we must now mention his faults. Undiftinguished praise is as weak as it is unjust; it neither does credit to the encomiatt, nor to the perfon com→ mended.

Gram