which we shiver at the least inclemency of weather, and tremble at the rustling of a leaf ; but that fine and comprehensive fenfibility, by which we are strongly impreffed with the whole material and ideal world.

If poets are thus conftituted, and act in this manner, we need not wonder that by far the greater number of them have been condemned to poverty and distress, from Homer to Dryden ; that few of them have been ambassadours, and secretaries of ftate ; that they have been left to shift for themselves, without generous patronage, and splendid connections ; and that it is difficult to investigate the tenour of their lives.

But though in giving an account of a poet, we are often obliged to substitute loose anecdotes and precarious conjecture for distinct and connected narration, the life of the poet is not surely in itself, in its own nature, unentertaining, and uninteresting. Is the display of a human phænomenon fo infignificant to mankind? Do not the powers and exertion of his mind, his greatness, and his weakness, his ecstatick joys, and pungent sorrows, well deserve our attention? Is not his history productive of moral reflection? Does it not teach men of inferiour endow. ments to survey the prodigy rather with compassion than with envy'? Even his common and domestick manner is not a trifle ; for even there genius infuences him, and distinguishes him, though calmly and familiarly, from the rest of mankind. Are politicks, war, the origin, and downfall of empires, grandeur, and royalty, more important objects to the generality of readers ? No one will affert that they are, who can distinguish wonder from instruction, and fplendour from use.

But however infignificant the life of a poet may be thought in itfelf, or however difficult to be known, the life of Waller, we may hope, will not be uninterefting to the generality of readers. We have accounts of him from better vouchers than report and conjecture; and we are not merely to view his poetical character. He inherited an affluent fortune, which facilitated his connections with the great and diverfified his fituations; and he was a member of our legiflature in a period unparalleled by hiftory.

Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, in the year 1605, at Coleshill, in the county of Hertford. He was the fon of Robert Waller, efq. of Agmondefham, or Aymefham, in Buckinghamhire. Coleshill is in the neighbourhood of Aymelham, though in a different county. His mother was fifter to Hampden, the famous republican, who was killed at the battle of Chalgrave; and she was coufin to Oliver Cromwell.

His father was bred to the law; but after profecuting that profeffion for a fhort time, he quitted and exchanged it for retirement.

The pedigree of our author deferves to be traced farther back; for it was not only confpicuous by wealth, but by the fuperiour luftre of virtue.

In

He was defcended from the Wallers of Kent. the Villare Cantium, we are told that Richard WalTér, Efq. of Spendhurst, in that county, was an officer in the army of Henry the Fifth, when that monarch was at war with France; and that he signalized himfelf by taking prifoner Charles duke of Orleans, the French géneral, at the battle of Azincour. The fame gentleman was fheriff of Kent in the fixteenth year of the reign of Henry the Sixth. From him was lineally defcended Sir William Waller, who was fheriff of Kent, in the twenty-fecond year of

the

the reign of Henry the Seventh; at which time' as tradition informs us, the family.eftate was worth 7000 pounds a-year. But it was much reduced when that Sir William Waller of Kent fucceeded to it, who was one of the Generals of the Parliament in the civil war, and cotemporary with Edmund Waller. At what time a younger fon of this family removed from Kent into Buckinghamfhire, we cannot determine; but it is fuppofed that he lived not very long before the poet, who was his lineal defcendant.

Robert, the father of Edmund Waller, by his economy, and application to agriculture, had greatly improved his paternal eftate. He died while his fon was an infant, and left him heir to 3 500 pounds a-year: a capital fortune in thofe days, when wealth was far lefs multiplied, and luxury far lefs refined than they are at prefent.

The care of young Waller's education devolved now upon his mother. She fent him to Etonfchool, and to King's College in Cambridge. It appears that he very early difcovered that acuteness of intellect, and elegance of imagination with which his poetry and eloquence were afterwards fo eminently marked; for he obtained a feat in the House of Commons for Aymefham, when he was only fixteen years of age, * in the third parliament of James the Firft. The right of Aymefham to fend members to Parliament was then difputed; in fuch cafes, however, reprefentatives were returned, and allowed to fit in the House, fub filentio, without the privilege of debating. We find in Grey's Debates that fometimes a minor took his feat in the Houfe of Commons under this reftriction; and that Mr. * Grey's Debates, vol. I. p. 354. + Ibid, p. 355. ↑ Life of Clarendon, vol. I. and II. 2 4

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Waller fate when he was fixteen, is proved by his own words in the fame debates. "I was but fixteen, fays he, when I fate firft; and fometimes it "has been thought fit that young men may be early "in councils, that they may be alive when others "are dead." Hence lord Charendon, in his character of Waller, tells us, that he was nurfed in Parliaments.

James diffolved his third Parliament *, because it would not vote him the fupplies which he, and his ministers demanded. On the day of its diffolution, Mr. Waller went to court, and faw the King dine in publick. That monarch, with his ufual weaknefs, broached his arbitrary principles, which even then began to be unpopular, in the hearing of the circle. Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchefter, and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham ftood behind his Majefty's chair while he was at dinner. The king afked the two bishops if " he might not levy money

upon his fubjects when he wanted it, without ap"plying to Parliament." Neale, without hesitation, replied," God forbid you might not! for you are "the breath of our noftrils." -The king then turned to the bishop of Winchester," Well,

my lord, what fay you ?"--" Sir, replied An"drews, I am not skilled in parliamentary cafes." No put-offs, my lord, faid the king; answer me "prefently.""I think, then, faid the bishop,

guilty of facrilege in publick without a blush, and prostitute to a king that fcriptural language of humiliation which was only due to his creator. liberty, in James's reign, only dawned upon our illand.

But

Prince Charles, before he fet fail for England, after having long follicited a marriage with the Infanta at the court of Spain, gave a magnificent entertainment on board the British admiral, in the Port of St. Andero, to fome Spanish grandees who had escorted him from Madrid. In going a-fhore with his guests, the Prince and they were almost lost in a violent ftorm. Mr. Waller, in the eighteenth year of his age, wrote his firft Poem on this danger and escape of his royal Highness; a fine panegyrick, if we confider the youth of the author, the neceffary imperfections of every firft effort of genius, and the æra of our language in which it was compofed. It is remarkable for its politenefs, and delicacy of compliment; and for an elegance and richness of imagination, not without that luxuriance and redundancy which are rather promifing than reprehenfible in al young poet. In this piece, too, we meet with that unexpected, yet natural approximation, comparifon, and contraft of different images, which characterize the writings of Waller; and there he, at once, and as it were inftinctively, far excelled all the poets that went before him in giving grace and harmony to our decafyllable rhyme. We cannot reflect without furprize that Waller, and Pope, in the first exertion of their talents, and before the age at which the human mind is generally matured, furpaffed all their predeceffors in an eafy and elegant flow of numbers, and to a degree of fuperiority, which, in the common progrefs of our improvements is only attained in a century. Who, merely from reading