" Winchester, Well, my Lord, what fay • Sir, replied the replied the bishop, I have ' no fkill to judge of parliamentary cafes. "The King answered, "No put-offs, my "Lord; aufwer me prefently." Then, Sir, citora, faid he, I think it is lawful for you to "take my brother Neale's money; for he "offers it.' Mr. Waller faid, the company of entwills bevolen bu & LOJEN JE onion 64 was pleafed with this anfwer, and the wit "of it feemed to affect the King; for, a certo bemoant low fan sund of "tain lord coming in foon after, his Majefty cried out, "Oh, my lord, they say you lig with my Lady." No, Sir,' fays his "Lordship in confufion ; but I like her to quand EWENDELA SO barot st "company, becaufe fhe has fo much wit.' Why then," fays the King, 66 66 has do "not ot lig with my Lord of Winchefter there?" Vinibionys didismol bensqqad oko 94 moneypos adi, ni naluw aidt counitnos 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 Efcape at St. Andero:" a piece which juftifies the obfervation made by doide no pa 903 BV DEL POTATO SIG. one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a ftyle which perhaps 66 will never be obfolete; and that, were elulen i to darsid "we to judge only by the wording, we could "not know what 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, 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 feems 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 poe *Preface to his Fables. Dr. J. tical 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 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 other poems. Waller was not one of thofe 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. Doriner of Oxfordshire, the 'died in childbed, and left him a widower of about five and twenty, gay and wealthy, to please I himself with another marriage. die „bin) ai to tolom daw tasartaloggaib aid sonloh 20 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 Sacharifla is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latin appellation of fugar, and implies, if it means any thing,afpiritlefs mildnefs, and dull good-nature, fuch as excites rather tenderness and Sefteem, manu fuch as, though always treated with kindnefs, is never honoured or admired, starv et et flhedorë nanobro doum jou 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 wishes, though in vain, to break, and whofe prefence is wine that inflames to madness. His ΟΙ a bus gauoy beib odw gols mid 1dquont o His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit po opportunity of boafting its influence; he was not to be fubdued d by the powers of verfe, but rejected his addrefles, 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 caufe; and, in her old age, meeting dage, fomewhere with Waller, afked him, when he would again write fuch verfes upon her; "When you are as young, Madam," sai faid the, and as handfome, as you were then." 66 mi basing to noiselleqqe ait I edi 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 comprised in wit. dtive adool of modw an,sousuftai an The Lady was, indeed, inexorable; but This uncommon qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to |