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of this play, that it is the work of a man not attentive to decency, nor zealous for virtue; but of one who conceived forcibly, and drew originally, by confulting nature in his own breaft,

Together with those plays he wrote the poems which are in the late collection, and tranflated from the French the Hiftory of the Triumvirate.

All this was performed before he was thirty-four years old; for he died April 14, 1685, in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having been compelled by his neceffities to contract debts, and hunted, as is fuppofed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a publick house on Tower-hill, where he is faid to have died of want; or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by fwallowing, after a long faft, a piece of bread which charity had fupplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-house, asked him for a fhilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was choaked

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choaked with the first mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; and there is this ground of 'better hope, that Pope who lived near enough to be well informed, relates in Spence's memorials, that he died of a fever caught by violent purfuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that indigence, and its concomitants, forrow and defpondency, pressed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him to the grave.

Of the poems which the late collection admits, the longest is the Poet's Complaint of his Mufe, part of which I do not understand; and in that which is lefs obfcure I find little to commend. The language is often grofs, and the numbers are harsh. Otway had not much cultivated verfification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His principal power was in moving the paffions, to which Dryden in his latter years left an illuftrious teftimony. He appears, by fome of his verses, to have been a zealous royalist: and had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.

*

*In his preface to Frefnoy's Art of Painting

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WALLER.

WALLER.

DMUND WALLER was born on

ED

the third of March, 1605, at Colfhill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Efquire, of Agmondefham in Buckinghamfhire, whofe family was originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in the fame county, and fifter to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.

His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him an yearly income of three thoufand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value of money and the cuftoms of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thousand at the prefent time.

He

He was educated, by the care of his mo ther, at Eaton; and removed afterwards to King's College in Cambridge. He was fent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his fixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the Firft, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who seems to have been well informed of facts, though he may fometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably certain.

"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Win"chester, and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham,

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ftanding behind his Majefty's chair; and "there happened fomething extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the converfation "those prelates had with the king, on which "Mr. Waller did often reflect. His Majefty afked the bishops," My Lords, cannot I take my subjects money, when I want it, "without all this formality of parliament ?" "The bishop of Durham readily anfwered, "God forbid, Sir, but you fhould: you are "the breath of our noftrils.' Whereupon the

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King turned and faid to the bishop of Win

"chefter,

« chefter, "Well, my Lord, what fay you ?" "Sir,' replied the bishop, 'I have no skill ta

judge of parliamentary cafes.' The King "anfwered, "No put-offs, my Lord; answer " 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. "Waller faid, the company was pleased with "this anfwer, and the wit of it feemed to

affect the King; for, a certain 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;ʻ but "I like her company, because she has fo much “wit.'" Why then," fays the King, “do you

not lig with my Lord of Winchester there?"

Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears firft in his works, on "the Prince's Efcape at St. Andero;" a piece which justifies the observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like inftinct, a ftyle which perhaps will never be obsolete; and that, were we "to judge only by the wording, we could "not know what was wrote at twenty, and "what

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