loom? why, like the foolish bird of Arabia, should he hide his head in the sand of obscurity and shun the gaze of an admiring world?

But we are entering into a discussion which is wholly irrelevant to the present purpose. However the question might have been agitated formerly, if ever a doubt did exist, we believe it is not disputed in the present day, that the letters supposed to have passed between St. Evremond and Waller were written by Dr. Langhorne. Had they been published anonymously, without any allusion to the editor of the Letters between Theodosius and Constantia, the author might have experienced much difficulty in substantiating his title. He has infused into the composition of these letters so much of the very spirit, taste and temper of their supposed authors that the scepticism of incredulity is still alive, and yet withholds her entire belief of the innocent fraud, although it has been reduced to an almost indubitable certainty.

The publishers of this first American edition of these letters, having resolved to prefix a brief

sketch of the lives of Mr. Waller and Mons. De St. Evremond, we shall collect from different writers, such information as appears to be necessary to give the reader some idea of their respective characters, of and of the age in which they flourished.

EDMUND WALLER was born in March 1605. After receiving a good education, for which he was indebted to the care of his mother, he was elected to a seat in Parliament in his sixteenth or eighteenth year. Very early in life he contracted a marriage with Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city, who left him, a widower, at the age of five and twenty. How he solaced his grief under this severe afflic tion, may be learned from his works, where we find him wooing high born dames under poetical titles. But the pride of nobility was not to be softened by the blandishments of the muse. However women may be flattered by the praises of a man of wit, they have generally too much sense not to know that matrimony requires qualifications more solid than poetry to ensure its happiness. A 3

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When age has robbed them of the bloom of beauty which first warmed the fancy of the poet, they fear that disgust or indifference, will succeed like the beams of the morning chasing the pleasing vision from the pillow of the lover. Many qualities," says Dr. Johnson, contribute to domes tick happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight imagination,which he who flatters them can never approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze."

Waller was a member of the long parliament in 1040. Upon the king's demand of a supply, he made one of those noisy speeches, according to Dr. Johnzon, which disaffection and discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical complaints of imaginary grievances. During that session he was employed in managing the prosecution of Judge Crawley, who was impeached for his opinion in favour of the ship-money. His zeal on that occasion is supposed to have been owing to

his relationship to the celebrated Hampden, who had been particularly injured by the sentence of the court.

When the rupture between the Commons and the King took place, and the royal authority was set at open defiance, Waller is said to have with-drawn from the House. But it is also said, that he returned with the King's permission, and sent him a thousand broad pieces to aid him in maintaining hispower. This circumstance is rendered extremely probable by the subsequent discovery of the combination which was known by the name of Waller's plot. The limits of a preface do not alFow us to enter into the particulars of this affair. They are indeed clouded with much mystery. The little that is known may be gathered from the biography of Johnson and the History of Clarendon. As far as they go they redound very little to the credit of the Poet. He was the contriver of a glorious plot from which he meanly shrunk when he was discovered, and endeavoured to screen himself by deserting and surrendering

his companions. Whether Lords Portland and Conway did join with him, is a matter of no consequence as it regards the integrity of Waller. He either betrayed his co-adjutors or wrongfully accused them. "Waller," says Clarendon "was so "confounded with fear, that he confessed whate66 ver he had heard, said, thought or seen : all that "he knew of himself, and all that he suspected of

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others, without concealing any person of what de

gree or quality soever, or any discourse which. "he had ever upon any occasion entertained with. "them; what such and such ladies of great ho"nour, to whom, upon the credit of his wit and "great reputation, he had been admitted, had spoke " to him in their chambers upon the proceedings " in the houses, and how they had encouraged him "to oppose them; what correspondence and inter"course they had with some Ministers of state "at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence thither.”

Waller was expelled from the house, and afterwards tried and condemned by a council of war during a reprieve, for which he was indebted