Ted him to fome exceffes; but they were always fet right the next day, with great humanity and ample retribution. So much fweetnefs accompanied what he faid, and fo much generofity what he did, that people were always prepoffeffed in his favour."

Indeed he appears to have had much better principles than his companions: he was exact in the payment of his debts, a ftrict obferver of his word, inviolable in his friendships, and unbounded in his charities. "This extraordinary youth (continues the poet) was accompanied with fo true a judgment in all parts of fine learning, that whatever subject was before him, he difcourfed upon it as if the peculiar bent of his study had been applied that way. The moft eminent mafters appealed to his determination, Waller confulted him in his verfe, and Spratt in his profe. Dryden, in the character of Eugenius, abides by his decifion as to the laws of dramatic poetry. Butler :owed it to him that the court tafted Hudibras; and the duke of Buckingham deferred to publifh his Rehearsal till he was fure (as he expreffed it) that Dorset would not rehearse upon him again.

"As the judgment he made of the writing of others could not be refuted, fo the manner in which he wrote himself will hardly be equalled. His abundant wit, the brightness of his parts, diftinguished him in an age of great politenefs, and at a court crowded with men of talents. Every one of his pieces is an ingot of gold, intrinfically and folidly valuable; fuch as, wrought thinner, would thine through a whole book of any other author. His thought is always new, and the expreffion of it fo peculiarly happy, that it is as natural as inimitable. His love yerfes have delicacy and ftrength; they convey the wit of Petronius in the foftnefs of Tibullus; his fatire indeed is feverely pointed, and in it he appears what lord Rochester says he was,

"The best good man with the worst-natured muse.

Ye

"Yet even here the character may be applied to him which Perfeus gives of the first writer of the kind that ever lived

"Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amici,

Tangit, et admiffus circum præcordia ludit.""

Thus far Prior.-A more fevere critic of our own times mentions him as a man whofe elegance and judgment were univerfally confeffed, and whofe bounty to the learned and the witty was generally known. And if fuch a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were praised. Dryden, whom he distinguished by his beneficence, (and who lavished his blandishments on those who are known not to have deferved them,) in undertaking to produce authors of our own country fuperior to thofe of antiquity, fays, "I would inftance your lordship in fatire, and Shakspeare in tragedy."

Would it be imagined, that of this rival to antiquity, all the fatires were little perfonal invectives, and his longeft compofition a fong of eleven stanzas?

The blame, however, of this exaggerated praife falls on the encomiaft, not upon the author; whofe performances are, what they profefs to be, the effufions of a man of wit-gay, vigorous, and airy. His verfes to Howard fhow great fertility of mind, and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope.

Edmund Waller was born in Herefordfhite, 1605. His father was Robert Waller, efq. and his mother daughter of John Hampden, and fifter to the celebrated patriot of that name. His father died whilft an infant, and left him a yearly income of 3500l. He was educated at Eton, and removed afterwards to Cambridge. Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. He was fent to parliament in his eighteenth year, and at the fame time wrote the poem which appears firft in his works, On the Prince's Efcape at St. Andero ;

a piece

a piece which juftifies the obfervation made by one of his editors, "that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a style which will never be obfolete: and were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at fourfcore." By the perufal of Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo, (to which he confeffes himself indebted for the smoothness of his numbers,) and by his own nicety of obfervation, he had then formed fuch a fyftem of metrical harmony as he never afterwards much needed, or endeavoured to improve. Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground upon the ruggednefs of the age; but what was acquired by Denham was inherited by Waller.

Waller was not one of thofe idolaters of fame who cultivate their minds at the expence of their fortunes: rich as he was by birth, he took care early to grow richer by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city. At her death, which was foon, he fixed his heart ambitiously on the lady Dorothea Sidney, daughter of the earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sachariffa is celebrated. This high-born dame afforded wit no opportunity of boafting its influence; unfubdued by his verfe, fhe rejected his addreffes with difdaim. When he had loft all hopes, he looked round for an easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Breffe, of whom nothing is recorded but that the brought him many children. His uncommon qualifications recommended him to the moft illuftrious fcholars and ftatesmen; and during the long interval of parliament he is reprefented às living amongst thofe with whom it was moft honourable to converfe, and enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of fpeech which wealth ought always to produce. He was confidered however as the kinfman of Hampden, and therefore fuppofed by the courtiers not to favour them.

When the parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller's political character had not been much mif

taken:

*

taken the king's demand of a fupply produced one of thofe noify fpeeches which difaffection and difcontent regularly dictate; a fpeech filled with hyperbolical complaints of imaginary grievances. He then proceeded to rail at the clergy, being fure, at that time, of a favourable audience. His topic is fuch as will always ferve its purpofe-an accufation of preaching only for preferment; and he exhorts the commons to provide for their protection against pulpit law.

The fpeech is vehement; but the great pofition, that grievances ought to be redreffed before fupplies are granted, is agreeable enough to law and reafon: nor was Waller fuch an enemy to the king as not to wish his diftreffes lightened.

In the long parliament, Waller was confidered as a man fufficiently trufty and acrimonious, by the difcontented party, to be employed in managing the profecution of judge Crawley, for his opinion in favour of fhip-money; and he did not difappoint their expectations. He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor did he adopt all their opinions. When the great queftion, Whether epifcopacy ought to be abolished? was debated, he fpoke against the innovation fo coolly, fo reafonably, and fo firmly, that it is not without great injury to his name that his speech was omitted in his works; and it is much to be lamented, that he who could plead in fo able a manner in a right caufe had not acted throughout with spirit and uniformity.

The engagement, known by the name of Waller's plot, was foon afterwards difcovered. Waller had a brotherin-law, Tomkins, who was clerk of the queen's council; and at the fame time had great influence in the city. Waller and he, converfing with great confidence, told their own fecrets, and thofe of their friends; and, furveying the wide extent of their acquaintance, imagined they had found, in the majority of all ranks, great disapproba

tion of the violence of the commons, and unwillingness to continue the war. They knew that many favoured the king, whofe fear concealed their loyalty; and many defired peace, though they durft not oppofe the clamour; and they fuppofed, that if thefe could be informed of their own ftrength, and enabled to act together, they might overpower the fury of fedition, refufe the taxes levied for the rebel army, and, by uniting in a petition for peace, reftore the king, and fave the country.

Lord Conway joined in their defign, which chiefly was, to bring the loyal inhabitants to the knowledge of each other. It is the opinion of Clarendon, that no violence or fanguinary refiftance was intended-only to abate the confidence of the rebels by public declarations, and to weaken their power by an oppofition to new fupplies. About this time another plot was formed by fir Nicholas Crifpe, a man whofe loyalty has tranfmitted his name to pofterity-flattering himself that fome opportunity would encourage the king's friends to break out in open refiftance to the commons, and then would only want a lawful ftandard, and authorifed commanders, he extorted from the king a commiffion of array, directed to fuch as he thought proper to nominate. This commiffion, which could only be intended to lie ready till the occasion should require it, was an act preparatory to hoftility; and Crifpe would undoubtedly have put an end to the feffion of parliament, had his ftrength been equal to his zeal. Out of the defign of Crifpe, and that of Waller, which was an act purely civil, the commons compounded a horrid and dreadful plot: guards were fent to apprehend Tomkins and Waller, the last of whom was fo confounded with fear, that he confeffed whatever he had heard, feen, faid, or thought; all that he knew of himself, and all that he fufpected of others, without concealing any perfon, of any degree or quality whatsoever, or any difcourfe which he had upon any occafion entertained with them. He accufed the earl of Portland and lerd Conway as co-operating in the

trans

L.