WALLE R.

EDMUND WALLER was born on the third of March, 1605, at Colfhill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Efquire, of Agmondefham in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentifh Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in the fame county, and fifter to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.

His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income of three thousand five hundred pounds; which rating together the value of money and the cuftoms 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 fent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his fixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the Firft, 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 fometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably certain :

"He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, "and Dr. Neale, Bishop of Durham, ftanding be"hind his Majefty's chair; and there happened fome"thing extraordinary," continues this writer, in "the converfation those prelates had with the King, "on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His Ma"jesty asked the bishops, " My Lords, cannot I "take my fubjects money when I want it, without "all this formality of parliament ?" The Bishop of "Durham readily anfwered, 'God forbid, Sir, but 66 you should you are the breath of our nostrils.' "Whereupon the King turned, and faid to the bishop of Winchefter, "Well, my Lord, what "fay you? 'Sir,' replied the bishop, "fkill to judge of parliamentary cafes.'

86

66

I have no The King anfwered, "No put-offs, my Lord; anfwer me prefently." Then, Sir, faid he, I think it is law

ful for you to take brother Neale's money; for

my

he offers it.' Mr. Waller faid, the company was "pleafed with this answer, and the wit of it feemed "to affect the King; for, a certain lord coming in "foon after, his Majefty cried out, " Oh my Lord, they fay you lig with my lady." No, Sir,' fays "his Lordship in confufion; but I like her company, because she has fo much wit.' Why then," fays the King, "do you not lig with my "Winchefter there?"

66

6

Lord of

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

" at St. Andero :" a piece which juftifies the observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like inftinct, a ftyle which perhaps will never be obfolete; and that, "were we to judge "only by the wording, we could not know what was "wrote at twenty, and what at fourscore." His verfification was, in his firft effay, fuch as it appears in his last performance. By the perusal of Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo, to which, as * Dryden relates, he confeffed himself indebted for the fmoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of obfervation, he had already formed fuch a fyftem of metrical harmony as he never afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured to improve. Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually upon the ruggednefs of his age; but what was acquired by Denham was inherited by Waller.

The next poem, of which the fubject seems to fix the time, is fuppofed by Mr. Fenton to be the Addrefs to the Queen, which he confiders as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year. He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation's obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written when she had brought many children. We have therefore no date of any other poetical production before that which the murder of the Duke of Buckingham occafioned; the fteadiness with which the King received the news in the chapel deferved indeed to be rescued from oblivion.

Neither of these pieces that feem to carry their own dates could have been the fudden effufion of

*Preface to his Fables. Dr. J.

fancy. In the verfes on the Prince's efcape, the prediction of his marriage with the Princess of France must have been written after the event; in the other, the promises of the King's kindness to the defcendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by its effects, fhew that time was taken for revifion and improvement. It is not known that they were published till they appeared long afterwards with other poems.

Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their minds at the expence of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heirefs in the city, whom the intereft of the Court was employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a fon, who died young, and a daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer of Oxfordshire, fhe died in childbed, and left him a widower of about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself with another marriage.

Being too young to refift beauty, and probably too vain to think himself refiftible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and half ambitioufly, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sachariffa is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latin appellation of fugar, and implies, if it means any thing, a fpiritlefs mildness, and dull good-nature, fuch as excites rather tendernefs than esteem, and fuch as, though always treated with kindness, is never honoured or admired.

Yet he defcribes Sachariffa as a fublime predominating beauty, of lofty charms, and imperious influence

influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather than fondness, whofe chains he wishes, though in. vain, to break, and whose presence is wine that inflames to madness.

His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave Wit no opportunity of boafting its influence; fhe was not to be fubdued by the powers of verfe, but rejected his addreffes, it is faid, with difdain, and drove him away to folace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newberry in the King's cause; and, in her old age, meeting fomewhere with Waller, afked him, when he would again write fuch verfes upon her; "When you are as young, Madam," faid he," and as handfome as you were then."

In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the reft of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature; but known fo little to his advantage, that they who read his character will not much condemn Sachariffa, that fhe did not defcend from her rank to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit.

The Lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to the fcholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of that time, however they might receive his love, were proud of his praifes. Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, cannot now be known. Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. Perhaps by traditions preferved in families more may be difcovered.

From