The

Charles I. Her son, the poet, was either a Roundhead or a royalist, as the time served. He entered parliament and wrote his first poem when he was eighteen. At twenty-five, he married a rich heiress of London, who died the same year, and the poet immediately became a suitor of Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester. To this proud and peerless fair one, Waller dedicated the better portion of his poetry, and the groves of Penshurst echoed to the praises of his Sacharissa. Lady Dorothea, however, was inexorable, and bestowed her hand, in her twenty-second year, on the Earl of Sunderland. It is said that, meeting her long afterwards, when she was far advanced in years, the lady asked him when he would again write such verses upon her. When you are as young, madam, and as handsome, as you were then,' replied the ungallant poet. incident affords a key to Waller's character. He was easy, witty, and accomplished, but cold and selfish; destitute alike of high principle and deep feeling. As a member of Parliament, Waller distinguished himself on the popular side, and was chosen to conduct the prosecution against Judge Crawley for his opinion in favour of levying ship-money. His speech, on delivering the impeachment, was printed, and 20,000 copies of it sold in one day. Shortly afterwards, however, Waller joined in a plot to surprise the city militia, and let in the king's forces, for which he was tried and sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £10,000. His conduct on this occasion was mean and abject. At the expiration of his imprisonment, the poet went abroad, and resided, amidst much splendour and hospitality, in France. He returned during the Protectorate, and when Cromwell died, Waller celebrated the event in one of his most vigorous and impressive poems. The image of the Commonwealth, though reared by no common hands, soon fell to pieces under Richard Cromwell, and Waller was ready with a congratulatory address to Charles II. The royal offering was considered inferior to the Panegyric on Cromwell, and the king himself who admitted the poet to terms of courtly intimacy-is said to have told him of the disparity. 'Poets, sire,' replied the witty, self-possessed Waller, 'succeed better in fiction than in truth.' In the first parliament summoned by Charles, Waller sat for the town of Hastings, and he served for different places in all the parliaments of that reign. Bishop Burnet says he was the delight of the House of Commons. At the accession of James II. in 1685, the venerable poet, then eighty years of age, was elected representative for a borough in Cornwall. The mad career of James, in seeking to subvert the national church and constitution, was foreseen by this wary and sagacious observer: He will be left,' said he, 'like a whale upon the strand.' The editors of Chandler's Debates and the Parliamentary History ascribe to Waller a remarkable speech against standing armies, delivered in the House of Commons in 1685; but according to Lord Macauley, this speech was really made by Windham, member for Salisbury. It was with some concern,' adds

the historian, that I found myself forced to give up the belief that the last words uttered in public by Waller were so honourable to him.' Feeling his long-protracted life drawing to a close, Waller purchased a small property at Coleshill, saying: He would be glad to die like the stag, where he was roused. The wish was not fulfilled; he died at Beaconsfield, on the 21st of October 1687; and in the church-yard of that place-where also rest the ashes of Edmund Burke-a monument has been erected to his memory.

The first collection of Waller's poems was made by himself, and published in the year 1664. It went through numerous editions in his lifetime; and in 1690 a second collection was made of such pieces as he had produced in his latter years. In a poetical dedication to Lady Harley, prefixed to this edition, and written by Elijah Fenton, Waller is styled

Maker and model of melodious verse.

This eulogium seems to embody the opinion of Waller's contemporaries, and it was afterwards confirmed by Dryden and Pope, who had not sufficiently studied the excellent models of versification furnished by the old poets, and their rich poetical diction. The smoothness of his versification, his good sense, and uniform elegance, rendered him popular with critics as with the multitude; while his prominence as a public man, for so many years, would increase curiosity as to his works His poems are chiefly short and incidental, but he wrote a poem on Divine Love, in six cantos. Cowley had written his 'Davideis,' and recommended sacred subjects as adapted for poetry; but neither he nor Waller succeeded in this new and higher walk of the muse. Such an employment of their talents was graceful and becoming in advanced life, but their fame must ever rest on their light, airy, and occasional poems, dictated by that gallantry, adulation, and play of fancy which characterised the cavalier poets.

On Love.

Anger, in hasty words or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes;
And sorrow, too, finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief
So every passion, but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move;
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs,
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disordered, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despised,
Where he endeavours to be prized.
For women-born to be controlled-
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the generous steed oppressed
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,

Approaching, tamed th' unruly horse.
Unwisely we the wiser East

Pity, supposing them oppressed.
With tyrants' force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill;
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigour here.
Should some brave Turk, that walks
among

His twenty lasses, bright and young,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guards of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen
All this with indignation spoke,

From A Panegyric to my Lord Protector?
While with a strong and yet a gentle hand,
You bridle faction, and our hearts command,
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe,
Make us unite, and make us conquer too;

Let partial spirits still aloud complain,

Think themselves injured that they cannot reign,
And own no liberty, but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.

Above the waves, as Neptune shewed his face,
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race,
So has your Highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition tossing us repressed.
Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Restored by you, is made a glorious state;
The seat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom.
The sea's our own and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.

Heaven, that hath placed this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and its states to awe,
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle i

Whether this portion of the world were rent
By the rude ocean from the coutinent,
Or thus created, it was sure designed
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.

Hither the oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and succour at your court;
And then your Highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.

Still as you rise, the state exalted too,

Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you;

Changed like the world's great scene! when, without nois The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory

Run, with amazement we should read your story;
But living virtue, all achievements past,
Meets envy still to grapple with at last.

This Cæsar found; and that ungrateful age,
With losing him, went back to blood and rage;
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.

You, that had taught them to subdue their foes,
Could order teach, and their high sp'rits compose;
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage.
So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that first took pain
To tame his youth approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.

As the vexed world, to find repose, at last
Itself into Augustus' arms did cast;
So England now does, with like toil opprest,
Her weary head upon your bosom rest.

Then let Muses, with such notes as these,
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace.
Your battles they hereafter shall indite.
And draw the image of our Mars in fight.

Tell of towns stormed, and armies overrun,
And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won:
How, while you thundered, clouds of dust did chole
Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a Muse!

Here, in low strains, your milder deeds we sing,
But there, my lord, we 'll bays and olives bring

To crown your head; while you in triumph rido
O'er conquered nations, and the sea beside:
While all your neighbour Princes unto you,
Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence and due.

The British Navy.

When Britain, looking with a just disdain
Upon this gilded majesty of Spain,

And knowing well that empire must decline
Whose chief support and sinews are of coin,
Our nation's solid virtue did oppose

To the rich troublers of the world's repose.

And now some months, encamping on the main,' Our naval army had besieged Spain:

They that the whole world's monarchy designed,
Are to their ports by our bold fleet confined,
From whence our red cross they triumphant see,
Riding without a rival on the sea.

Others may use the ocean as their road,

Only the English make it their abode,
Whose ready sails with every wind can fly,

And make a covenant with the unconstant sky:
Our oaks secure, as if they there took root,
We tread on billows with a steady foot.

At Penshurst.

While in this park I sing, the listening deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear;
When to the beeches I report my flame,

They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers
With loud complaints, they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,

More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven!
Love's foe professed! why dost thou falsely feign
Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain
He sprung, (1) that could so far exalt the name
Of Love, and warm our nation with his flame,
That all we can of love or high desire,
Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be supposed to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock;
That cloven rock produced thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

Of such stern beauty, placed those healing springs (2)
Which not more help than that destruction brings.
The heart no ruder than the rugged stone,

I might, like Orpheus, with my numerous moan
Melt to compassion; now my traitorous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my own breath still foment the fire,

1 Sir Philip Sidney.

2 Tunbridge Wells.