Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Lecture the Twenty-Second.

EDMUND WALLER-SAMUEL BUTLER-HENRY VAUGHAN-SIR JOHN DENHAM---WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE-ANDREW MARVELL.

HE exalted position which Milton occupies in English Literature, has in

duced us to afford to the history of his life, and the examination of his genius and writings, a much larger space than we shall be permitted to extend to any of his contemporaries or successors.

EDMUND WALLER, the poet whom we shall next notice, was the son of John Waller, a gentleman of large estates, and Anne, sister of the celebrated John Hampden. He was born at Coleshill, Hertfordshire, in 1605, and received his education, preparatory for the university, under the supervision of the Reverend Mr. Dobson, minister of the parish of Great Wycombe He early entered King's College, Cambridge, where he remained about three years, and then left without taking his degree, being elected, when he had scarcely attained the seventeenth year of his age, to a seat in the last parliament of King James the First. His father, at his death, which oc curred during the infancy of the future poet, had left him in the possession of the ample fortune of three thousand pounds a year, and through the means of his wealth, Waller found easy access to familiar intercourse with the court and the nobility of the country.

Soon after he entered parliament, and when but eighteen years of age, he published his first poem; and at the age of twenty-five he married a rich heiress of London, whom, however, he had the misfortune to lose within the following year. He then became a suitor to Lady Dorathea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester; and to this proud and peerless fair one, he dedicated the better portion of his poetry, making the groves of Penshurst echo to the praises of his Sacharissa. Lady Dorathea, however, was inexorable, and bestowed her hand on the Earl of Sunderland. It is said that, meeting her many years after, when she was far advanced in life, 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. This incident is h more important, as it affords a key to

Waller's whole character. He was easy, witty, and accomplished, but cold and selfish in the extreme; and entirely destitute of both high principle and deep feeling.

In parliament Waller was either a friend or opponent of the royal party, as his own interest seemed to require, and throughout his long life the same want of principle prevailed. He, at one period of his parliamentary career greatly distinguished himself on the popular side, and was chosen to conduct the prosecution against Judge Crawley for his opinion in favor of levying ship-money. His speech on delivering the impeachment, was printed, and twenty thousand copies of it sold in one day. Shortly afterward, however, he joined in a plot to surprise the city militia, and let the king's forces into the city of London, for which he was tried and sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds. His conduct upon this occasion was mean and abject in the extreme; and at the expiration of his imprisonment, he went abroad, and resided, for some years, amid much splendor, in France.

Waller returned to England during the Protectorate, and when Cromwell died he 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 welcome Charles the Second to the crown. The royal offering was considered inferior to the panegyric on Cromwell, and the king himself, who was in the habit of admitting the poet to terms of courtly intimacy, took occasion to point out the disparity to him. 'Poets, sire,' replied the witty, self-possessed Waller, 'always succeed better in fiction than in truth!'

In the first parliament summoned by Charles the Second, Waller sat for the town of Hastings, and he served for different places in all the succeeding parliaments of that reign. At the accession of James the Second, in 1685, the venerable poet, at that time 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.,' Feeling his long-protracted life drawing to a close, Waller purchased a small property at Coleshill, remarking that, 'he would be glad to die like the stag, where he was roused.' His desire was not, however, gratified, as he died at Beaconsfield, on the twenty-first of October, 1687, and was buried in the churchyard of that place, where a monument was afterward erected to his memory.

The poems of Waller have all the smoothness and polish of modern verse, and hence a high rank has been assigned to him as one of the first reformers and improvers of our versification. One cause of his refinement was, doubtless, his early and familiar intercourse with the court and nobility, and the bright conversational nature of most of his productions. He wrote for the world of fashion and taste-consigning

The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade;

and he wrote in the same strain till just before the close of his long and eventful life. The first collection of his poems was made by himself, and published in 1664. It passed 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 the

Maker and model of melodious verse.

This eulogium seems to embody the opinion of Waller's contemporaries, and it was afterward confirmed by Dryden and Pope, neither of whom had, however, sufficiently studied the excellent models of versification furnished by the old poets, as well as their rich poetical diction. The playfulness of his fancy, the smoothness of his numbers, his good sense, and uniform elegance, rendered him as popular with critics as with the multitude; while his prominence as a public man would naturally increase curiosity with regard to his works. His poems are chiefly short and incidental effusions, though toward the close of his life, he produced, in six cantos, a more elaborate work, the subject of which was, Divine Love. But though such employments of his talents was graceful and becoming in advanced life, yet in this new and higher walk of the muse, he did not succeed; his fame, therefore, must ever rest on his light, airy, and fanciful performances.

In the following selections from this author, we have aimed to illustrate and sustain the preceding remarks, and to exhibit all the varieties of his style:

[blocks in formation]

SAY, LOVELY DREAM.

Say, lovely dream! where could'st thou find
Shades to counterfeit that face?
Colours of this glorious kind

Come not from any mortal place.

In heav'n itself thou sure wert dress'd
With that angel-like disguise;

Thus deluded, am I blest,

And see my joy with closed eyes.

But, ah! this image is too kind
To be other than a dream;

Cruel Sacharissa's mind

Ne'er put on that sweet extreme.

Fair dream! if thou intend'st me grace,
Change that heavenly face of thine;

Paint despised love in thy face,

And make it t' appear like mine.

Pale, wan, and meagre, let it look,
With a pity-moving shape,
Such as wander by the brook

Of Lethe, or from graves escape.
Then to that matchless nymph appear,
In whose shape thou shinest so;
Softly in her sleeping ear

With humble words express my woe.

Perhaps from greatness, state, and pride,

Thus surprised, she may fall;

Sleep does disproportion hide,

And, death resembling, equals all.

OLD AGE AND DEATH.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more:
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home.

Leaving the old both worlds at once they view,

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

A PANEGYRIC TO THE 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 can not reign,
And own no liberty, but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.

Above the waves as Neptune show'd his face,
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race,
So has your Highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition tossing us repress'd.

Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Restor❜d 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.

Heav'n, that hath plac'd 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!
Whether this portion of the world were rent
By the rude ocean from the continent,
Or thus created, it was sure design'd
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 our's alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.

[blocks in formation]

Still as you rise, the state exalted too,

Finds no distemper while 'tis chang'd by you;

Chang'd like the world's great scene! when, without noise,

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.

That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars
Give a dim light to violence and wars;
To such a tempest as now threatens all,

Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall?

If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword,
Which of the conquer'd world had made them lord,
What hope had ours, while yet their power was new,
To rule victorious armies, but by you?

« AnteriorContinua »