(being another of the Commissioners) was witness of this kindness, imputes it to the King's knowledge of the plot, in which Waller appears soon afterward to have engaged against the parliament; probably, because he thought his opponents too violent in their proceedings. Whatever were his motives, he entered into a confederacy with Tomkins his brother-in-law, clerk of the Queen's Council, and Chaloner his brotherin-law's friend, to oppose the means necessary for carrying on the war against the King. This project the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Conway, and other noblemen so far encouraged, as to express their desire that expedients might be found to limit the authority exercised by the Commons: and by the royal Council it was even extended to the taking under their care the royal children; the securing of the principal leaders of the two Houses (the Lords Say and Wharton, Sir Philip Stapleton, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hampden, and Mr. Strode) with the Lord Mayor and Committee of the Militia; the seizing of the out-works, forts, magazines, gates, and other places of importance in the city and Tower; and the admitting of three thousand of his Majesty's forces from Oxford, as soon as the matter should be advanced to a proper maturity. While the affair however was in agitation, and lists were forming of such as were conceived to be wellaffected to the design, a servant who had accidentally overheard the discussion of the conspirators, carried the intelligence to Mr. Pym: upon which Waller, with some others, was taken into custody.

Waller's courage, at no time very great, now failed him; and under the hope of saving his life, he readily confessed every circumstance of the plot, and betrayed his nobler accomplices without compunction, counter

feiting at the same time such remorse of conscience, that his trial was put off out of mere compassion, till he should recover the use of his understanding. He invited visits from the ruling clergy, received their exhortations with reverence and humility, made them sumptuous presents, and pretended to gain from their instructions a degree of religious light and knowledge which he had never before attained. In the mean time his associates, Tomkins and Chaloner, were tried by a court-martial, convicted, and executed. The latter was attended, at his execution, by Hugh Peters. Northumberland was too great for prosecution. The Earl of Portland and Lord Conway persisting to deny the charge, which rested upon Waller's single testimony, were admitted to bail; and Hampden, though protected from actual punishment by the interest of his family, was kept in prison to the end of his life.

Waller himself, as Lord Clarendon informs us, though confessedly the most guilty, being "a man in truth very powerful in language; and who, by what he spoke, and in the manner of speaking it, exceedingly captivated the good will and benevolence of his hearers (which is the highest part of an orator) with such flattery as was most exactly calculated to that meridian, with such a submission as their pride took delight in, and such dejection of mind and spirit as was like to cosen the major part and be thought serious; laid before them their own danger, and concernment, if they should suffer one of their own body, how unworthy and monstrous soever, to be tried by the soldiers, who might thereby grow to that power hereafter, that they would both try those they would not be willing should be tried, and for

things which they would account no crimes; the inconvenience and insupportable mischief whereof all wise commonwealths had foreseen, and prevented, by exempting their own members from all judgements but their own.' He prevailed, not to be tried by a council of war, and thereby preserved his dear-bought life; so that, in truth, he does as much owe the keeping his head to that oration, as Catiline did the loss of his to those of Tully and by having done ill very well, he by degrees drew that respect to his parts, which always carries some compassion to the person, that he got leave to compound for his transgression, and them to accept of 10,000l., which their affairs wanted, for his liberty; whereupon he had leave to recollect himself in another country (for his liberty was to be in banishment) how miserable he had made himself, in obtaining that leave to live out of his own. And there cannot be a greater evidence of the inestimable value of his parts, than that he lived after this, in the good affection and esteem of many, the pity of most, and the reproach and scorn of few or none."

Waller now retired into France, where he lived at Paris in a stile of considerable hospitality; being the only Englishman, except Lord St. Alban's, who kept a table. He seems, indeed, to have inverted the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a squanderer in his last. This so reduced his finances, that he was compelled to sell his wife's jewels. For he had now married a second wife,

* Whitlocke however and others affirm, that he was actually tried and condemned, but through the interest of Essex obtained first a reprieve, and finally a pardon.

named Mary, of the family of Bresse or Breaux.* During his stay in France, he resided some time at Rouen, where his daughter Margaret was born. To this daughter, who used to serve him as his amanuensis, he was particularly attached. About the same period, he published the first edition of his Poems.

When Cromwell had assumed the protectorship, Waller, who was related to him, and was now reduced to what he himself called the rump-jewel,' obtained leave to return home: and with the remains of his fortune built himself a house at Hall Barn, very near to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. She, though so nearly related to the leading antagonists of Charles I., was invariably zealous in arguing for the royal cause; till Cromwell, finding in time that she acted as well as talked, made her a prisoner at last to her own daughter in her own house. This, however, did not prevent him from receiving his poetical kinsman with great kindness. Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently versed in ancient history; and when any of his enthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times; but when

this

* As none of his verses appear to have been written upon lady, Johnson justly remarks, that "many qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies delight imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze. In reality (observes Dr. Anderson) true homefelt bliss, like a deep stream, makes the least noise in it's course; and that such Waller enjoyed in his second marriage may be reasonably inferred from his wife's having brought him thirteen children," five sons and eight daughters,

he returned, he would say, "Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way," and resumed the common stile of conversation.

6

For this favour he recompensed the Protector by the celebrated panegyric,* which has always been deemed the first of his productions. He paid him also a noble compliment upon his death in a poem,* which seems to have been dictated by real veneration for his memory. Yet on the restoration of Charles II., his courtly muse with commodious pliancy complimented that Monarch upon his happy return.' Being told, on presenting this Poem, by his Majesty, that he thought it much inferior to his panegyric on Cromwell:'" Sire," replied the witty bard, "we poets never succeed so well in writing truth, as in fiction." Poets indeed (as Johnson observes) profess fiction but the legitimate end of fiction is the conveyance of truth; and he, that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be scorned as a prostituted mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lost the dignity of virtue.

The inferiority of the royalist poem, the same great authority ascribes to the personal inferiority of it's subject. A life of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid images; while Cromwell wanted nothing to raise him to heroic excellence, except virtue. He was now much caressed by his profligate Sovereign, and in his diversions at the Duke of Buckingham's, and other places, generally made one of the party. Charles even tolerated his temperance; upon which Mr. Savile observed, that "No man in

* See the Extracts. Dryden and Sprat, likewise, bewailed the death of Cromwell with "melodious tears."