THE characters, by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings, are spritelinefs and dignity; in his smaller pieces, he endeavours to be gay; in the larger, to be great. Of his airy and light productions, the chief fource is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence, which has defcended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly occafional, and his addreffes perfonal, he was not fo liberally fupplied with grand as with foft images; for beauty is more eafily found than magnanimity.

The delicacy, which he cultivated, reftrains him to a certain nicety and caution, even when he writès upon the flightest matter. He has therefore in his whole volume nothing burlesque, and seldom any thing ludicrous or familiar. He feems always to do his beft; though his fubjects are often unworthy of his care. It is not eafy to think without fome contempt on an author, who is growing illuftrious in his own opinion by verfes, at one time, "To a Lady, who can Dd

VOL. I.

"do

"do any thing, but fleep, when she pleases.” At another," To a Lady, who can fleep, "when the pleafes." Now," To a Lady, "on her paffing through a crowd of people." Then, "On a braid of divers colours woven by four fair Ladies :" "On a tree cut in

paper:" or, "To a Lady, from whom "he received the copy of verses on the paper-tree, which for many years had been mifling."

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We ftill read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleafes himfelf with a performance, which owes nothing to the subject. But compofitions merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in time for fomething useful: they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of fhort duration; or they are bloffoms to be valued only as they foretell fruits.

Among Waller's little poems are fome, which their excellency ought to secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, comparing the different modes of regard with which he

looks

looks on her and Sacharissa; and the verses On Love, that begin, Anger in bafty Words or Blows.

In others he is not equally fuccefsful; fometimes his thoughts are deficient, and fometimes his expreffion.

The numbers are not always mufical; as,

Fair Venus, in thy soft arms

The god of rage confine;

For thy whispers are the charms

Which only can divert his fierce defign.

What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;

Thou the flame

Kindled in his breaft canft tame,

With that fnow which unmelted lies on thine.

He feldom indeed fetches an amorous fentiment from the depths of fcience; his thoughts are for the most part easily underftood, and his images fuch as the fuperficies of nature readily supplies; he has a just claim to popularity, because he writes to common degrees of knowledge, and is free at least from philofophical pedantry, unless perhaps

the end of a fong to the Sun may be excepted, in which he is too much a Copernican. To which may be added, the fimile of the Palm in the verses on her passing through a crowd; and a line in a more ferious poem on the Reftoration, about vipers and treacle, which can only be understood by those who happen to know the compofition of the Theriaca.

His thoughts are fometimes hyperbolical, and his images unnatural:

--The plants admire,

No lefs than thofe of old did Orpheus' lyre;
If the fit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd;
They round about her into arbours crowd:
Or if the walks, in even ranks they stand,
Like fome well-marfhal'd and obfequious band.

In another place:

While in the park I fing, the liftening deer
Attend my paffion, and forget to fear :
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the fame:
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers,
With loud complaints they anfwer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel foul is given,

More deaf than trees, and prouder than the
heaven!

On

On the head of a Stag:

O fertile head! which every year
Could fuch a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming earth did never bring
So foon, fo hard, fo huge a thing:
Which might it never have been caft,
Each year's growth added to the last,
These lofty branches had fupply'd
The Earth's bold fons prodigious pride:
Heaven with these engines had been fcal'd,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd,

Sometimes, having fucceeded in the first part, he makes a feeble conclufion. In the fong of "Sachariffa's and Amoret's Friendship," the two last stanzas ought to have been omitted.

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His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree delicate.

Then shall my love this doubt difplace,
And gain fuch truft, that I may come

And banquet fometimes on thy face,
But make my conftant meals at home.