together: this however it is reasonable to doubt, as so long a continuance of one play upon the stage is a very wide deviation from the practice of that time; when the ardour for theatrical entertainments was not yet diffused through the whole people, and the audience, consisting nearly of the same persons, could be drawn together only by variety.

The Orphan was exhibited in 1680. This is one of the few plays that keep possession of the stage, and has pleased for almost a century, through all the vicissitude of dramatic fashion. Of this play nothing new can easily be said. It is a domestic tragedy drawn from middle life. Its whole power is upon the affections; for it is not written with much comprehension of thought, or elegance of expression. But if the heart is interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be missed.

The same year produced The History and Fall of Caius Marius; much of which is borrowed from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakspeare.

In 1683 was published the first, and next year the second parts of the Soldier's Fortune, two comedies now forgotten; and 1685 his last and greatest dramatic work, Venice Preserved, a tragedy which still continues to be one of the favourites of the public, notwithstanding the want of morality in the original design, and the despicable scences of vile comedy with which he has diversified his tragic action, By comparing this with his Orphan, it will appear that his images were by time become stronger, and his language more energetic. The striking passages are in every mouth; and the public seems to judge rightly of the faults and excellences of this

play, that it is the work of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous for virtue; but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting nature in his own breast.

Together with those plays, he wrote the poems which are in the present collection, and translated from the French the History of the Triumvirate.

All this was performed before he was thirty-four years old; for he died April 14, 1685, in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a public house on Tower-hill where he is said to have died of want; or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-houe, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was choaked with the first mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; and there is this ground of better hope, that 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, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him to the grave.

Of the poems which the present collection admits, the longest is the Poet's Complaint of his Muse, part of which I do not understand; and in that which

is less obscure I find little to commend. The language is often gross, and the numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cultivated versification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His principal power was in moving the passions, to which Dryden * in his latter years left an illustrious testimony. He appears by some of his verses to have been a zealous royalist, and had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.

*In his preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting,

WALLER.

EDMUND WALLER was born on the 3d of March 1605, at Colshill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Esquire of Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden of Hampden in the same country, and sister 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 thousand at the present time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eaton; and removed afterwards to King's College in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the First, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who seems

to have been well informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably certain.

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"He found Dr Andrews, bishop of Winchester, " and Dr Neale, bishop of Durham, standing be"hind his majesty's chair; and there happened "something extraordinary, continues this writer, "in the conversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr Waller did often reflect. His "majesty asked the bishops, My lords, cannot I "take my subjects' money when I want it, without "all this formality of parliament? The bishop of "Durham readily answered, God forbid, sir, but you should you are the breath of our nostrils. Whereupon the king turned and said to the bi"shop of Winchester, Well, my lord, what say 66 you ? Sir, replied the bishop, I have no skill "to judge of parliamentary cases. The king an

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swered, No put-offs, iny lord; answer me pre

sently. Then, sir, said he, I think it is lawful "for you to take my brother Neale's money; for "he offers it. Mr Waller said the company was

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pleased with this answer, and the wit of it seemed "to affect the king; for, a certain lord coming in "soon after, his majesty cried out, Oh, my lord

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they say you lig with my lady. No, sir, says "his lordship in confusion; but I like her com 66 pany, because she has so much wit. Why then, says the king, do you not lig with my lord of "Winchester there?"

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Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, on the prince's