"answered, "No put-offs, my Lord; answer

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me presently." Then, Sir,' faid he, I "think it is lawful for you to take my brother "Neale's money; for he offers it.' Mr. Wal"ler faid, the company was pleased with this "anfwer, and the wit of it feemed to affet 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 fhe has fo much wit.' Why then," fays the King, "do you not lig with my Lord of Winchester there?"

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46

Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears 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 instinct, a ftyle which perhaps will never be obfolete; and that, "were we to judge only "by the wording, we could not know what

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was wrote at twenty, and what at fourfcore." His verfification was, in his firft effay, fuch as it appears in his laft performance. By the perufal of Fairfax's tranflation of Taffo, to which,

B 2

*

which, as Dryden relates, he confeffed himfelf indebted for the fmoothnefs 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 ruggedness of his age, but what was acquired by Denham was inherited by Waller.

१

The next poem, of which the subject 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 the 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 refcued from oblivion.

*Preface to his Fables. Dr. J.

Neither

Neither of thefe pieces that seem to carry their own dates, could have been the fudden effufion of fancy. In the verfes on the Prince's escape, the prediction of his marriage with the princefs 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 thofe idolaters of praife 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 himfelf with another marriage.

Being too young to refift beauty, and probably too vain to think himself refiftable, he fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and half ambitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sachariflà 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 kindnefs, is never honoured or admired.

Yet he defcribes Sachariffa as a fublime predominating beauty, of lofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather than fondnefs, whofe chains he wifhes, though in vain, to break, and whofe prefence is wine that inflames to madness.

His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of boafting its influence; he 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

who died at Newberry in the king's caufe; 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 46 you were then."

In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the rest 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 she did not defcend from her rank to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprifed in wit.

The Lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to the fcholars and ftatefinen; 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 poctical 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.