versification. His principal merit is that of having been the first who uniformly observed the obligations of a strict metrical system. There are very few of his lines that do not read smoothly, and but one in which a syllabic defect can be detected. In the attainment of this end some sacrifices were unavoidable. To secure his numbers, Waller frequently inverts his meaning, and sometimes obscures it. In this respect he proceeds upon a principle the reverse of that laid down by Dryden, who maintained that poetry should flow directly to its purpose, and be as obvious as prose. Dr. Johnson observes that Waller 'sometimes retains the final syllable on the preterite, as amazèd, supposèd;' and it may be added that he employs or rejects it at will, to suit his measure, which produces uncertainty and impedes the reader. In this edition, the obstruction is removed by accenting the final syllable whenever it is to be pronounced. Waller's language is everywhere pure, and carefully chosen. Pope estimated it so highly that, in planning a dictionary that should be an authority for style, he selected Waller as one of the best examples of poetical diction. Nor is it a slight excellence that, writing in the age of Etherege and Rochester, his verse is never stained with a vicious sentiment, or a licentious image. If there is not much real emotion in his love poems, they are always refined and delicate, and full of an exquisite kind of gallantry. His gaiety has an instinctive air of high breeding; and no poet ever paid compliments in verse so gracefully. Voltaire compared him to Voiture, whom he thought he excelled. His Divine Poems, written near the close of his life, at the desire of Lady Ranelagh, are, in some aspects, his greatest performances. They not only exhibit no decadence of power, but embrace a larger field and a more ambitious purpose than he had ever attempted before; and the affecting lines with which he terminates the series, dictated to his daughter, Margaret, when he was nearly blind, may be justly considered the noblest he produced. Of few poets can it be said that their last lines were their best. POEMS OF EDMUND WALLER. TO MY LADY MADAM,-Your commands for the gathering these sticks into a faggot had sooner been obeyed, but, intending to present you with my whole vintage, I stayed till the latest grapes were ripe; for here your ladyship has not only all I have done, but all I ever mean to do of this kind. Not but that I may defend the attempt I have made upon poetry, by the examples (not to trouble you with history) of many wise and worthy persons of our own times; as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, Cardinal Perron (the ablest of his countrymen), and the former Pope, who, they say, instead of the Triple Crown, wore sometimes the poet's ivy, as an ornament, perhaps, of lesser weight and trouble. But, madam, these nightingales sung only in the spring; it was the diversion of their youth; as ladies learn to sing and play when they are children, what they forget when they are women. resemblance holds further; for, as you quit the lute the sooner because the posture is suspected to draw the body awry, so this is not always practised without some villany to the mind; wresting it from present occasions, and accustoming us to a style somewhat removed from common use. But, that you may not think his case deplorable who had made these verses, we are told that Tully (the greatest wit among the Romans) was once sick of this disease; and yet recovered so well, that of almost as bad a The * This letter was prefixed to the collection of Waller's poems published during his exile, but omitted from all subsequent editions. Most readers, notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Fenton, will infer, from internal evidence, that it was designed for publication. The name of the lady to whom it was addressed is unknown. She was probably an imaginary personage-the lady of the brain, not of the heart' of the writer. poet as your servant, he became the most perfect orator in the world. So that, not so much to have made verses, as not to give over in time, leaves a man without excuse; the former presenting us with an opportunity at least of doing wisely, that is, to conceal those we have made; which I shall yet do, if my humble request may be of as much force with your ladyship, as your commands have been with me. Madam, I only whisper these in your ear; if you publish them, they are your own; and therefore, as you apprehend the reproach of a wit and a poet, cast them into the fire; or, if they come where green boughs are in the chimney, with the help of your fair friends (for thus bound, it will be too hard a task for your hands alone), tear them in pieces, wherein you will honour me with the fate of Orpheus; for so his poems, whereof we only bear the form (not his limbs, as the story will have it), I suppose were scattered by the Thracian dames. Here, madam, I might take an opportunity to celebrate your virtues, and to instruct you how unhappy you are, in that you know not who you are; how much you excel the most excellent of your own, and how much you amaze the least inclined to wonder of our sex. But as they will be apt to take your ladyship's for a Roman name, so would they believe that I endeavoured the character of a perfect nymph, worshipped an image of my own making, and dedicated this to the lady of the brain, not of the heart, of Your Ladyship's most humble servant, EDM. WALLER. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF MR. WALLER'S POEMS, AFTER THE RESTORATION, PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1664. WHEN the author of these verses (written only to please himself, and such particular persons to whom they were directed) returned from abroad some years since, he was troubled to find his name in print; but somewhat satisfied to see his lines so ill rendered that he might justly disown them, and say to a mistaking printer as one did to an ill reciter, Male dum recitas, incipit esse tuus.* Having been ever since pressed to correct the many and gross faults (such as use to be in impressions wholly neglected by the authors), his answer was, that he made these when ill verses had more favour, and escaped better, than good ones do in this age; * Martial, lib. i. ep. 39. the severity whereof he thought not unhappily diverted by those faults in the impression which hitherto have hung upon his book, as the Turks hang old rags, or such like ugly things, upon their fairest horses, and other goodly creatures, to secure them against fascination. And for those of a more confined understanding, who pretend not to censure, as they admire most what they least comprehend, so his verses (maimed to that degree that himself scarce knew what to make of many of them) might, that way at least, have a title to some admiration; which is no small matter, if what an old author observes be true, that the aim of orators is victory, of historians truth, and of poets admiration. He had reason, therefore, to indulge those faults in his book, whereby it might be reconciled to some, and commended to others. The printer also, he thought, would fare the worse if those faults were amended; for we see maimed statues sell better than whole ones; and clipped and washed money goes about, when the entire and weighty lies hoarded up. These are the reasons which, for above twelve years past, he has opposed to our request; to which it was replied, that as it would be too late to recall that which had so long been made public, so might it find excuse from his youth, the season it was produced in; and for what had been done since, and now added, if it commend not his poetry, it might his philosophy, which teaches him so cheerfully to bear so great a calamity as the loss of the best part of his fortune, torn from him in prison (in which, and in banishment, the best portion of his life hath also been spent), that he can still sing under the burthen, not unlike that Roman, Whose spreading wings the civil war had clipped, Who yet not long after could say, Musis amicus, tristitiam et metus Tradam protervis in mare Creticum They that acquainted with the muses be, Send care and sorrow by the winds to sea. Not so much moved with these reasons of ours (or pleased with our rhymes), as wearied with our importunity, he has at last given *Horace, lib. ii. ep. 2. † Lib. i. ode 26. us leave to assure the reader, that the Poems which have been so long and so ill set forth under his name, are here to be found as he first writ them; as also to add some others which have since been composed by him: and though his advice to the contrary might have discouraged us, yet observing how often they have been reprinted, what price they have borne, and how earnestly they have been always inquired after, but especially of late (making good that of Horace, ... Meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit.* some verses being, like some wines, recommended to our taste by time and age') we have adventured upon this new and wellcorrected edition, which, for our own sakes as well as thine, we hope will succeed better than he apprehended. Vivitur ingenio, cætera mortis erunt. ALBINOVANUS.† PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART OF MR. WALLER'S POEMS, PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1690. THE reader needs be told no more in commendation of these Poems, than that they are Mr. Waller's; a name that carries everything in it that is either great or graceful in poetry. He was, indeed, the parent of English verse, and the first that showed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it. Our language owes more to him than the French does to Cardinal Richelieu, and the whole Academy. A poet cannot think of him without being in the same rapture Lucretius is in when Epicurus comes in his way. Tu pater, et rerum inventor; tu patria nobis Aurea! perpetua semper dignissima vita !‡ The tongue came into his hands like a rough diamond: he polished it first, and to that degree, that all artists since him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to mend it. Suckling and Carew, I must confess, wrote some few things smoothly enough; but as all they did in this kind was not very considerable, so it was a little later than the earliest pieces of Mr. * Lib. ii. ep. 1. †There can be no reasonable doubt that this preface was written by Waller himself. Lib. iii. ver. 9. |