Want of morals, or of decency, did not in those days exclude any man from the company of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with him any powers of entertainment; and Otway is faid to have been at this time a favourite companion of the diffolute wits. But as he who defires no virtue in his companion has no virtue in himself, thofe whom Otway frequented had no purpose of doing more for him than to pay his reckoning. They defired only to drink and laugh: their fondnefs was without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. Men of wit, fays one of Otway's biographers, received at that time no favour from the Great but to fhare their riots; from which they were difmiffed again to their own narrow circumftances. Thus they languished in poverty without the fupport of eminence.

Some exception, however, muft be made. The Earl of Plymouth, one of King Charles's natural fons, procured for him a cornet's commiffion in fome troops then fent into Flanders. But Otway did not profper in his military character: for he foon left his commiffion behind him, whatever was the reason, and came back to London in extreme indigence; which Rochefter mentions with mercilefs infolence in the Seffion of the Pacts:

Tom Otway came next, Tom'Shadwell's dear zany,
And fwears for heroicks he writes beft of any;

Don Carlos his pockets fo amply had fill'd,

That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were all kill'd.

But Apollo had feen his face on the stage,

And prudently did not think fit to engage
The fcum of a play-houfe, for the prop of an age.
VOL. IX.

Q

}

Don

Don Carlos, from which he is reprefented as having received fo much benefit, was played in 1675. It appears, by the lampoon, to have had great fuccefs, and is faid to have been played thirty nights together. This however it is reafonable to doubt,, as fo long a continuance of one play upon the ftage. is a very wide deviation from the practice of that time; when the ardour for theatrical entertainments was not yet diffufed through the whole people, and, the audience, confifting nearly of the fame perfons,. could be drawn together only by variety.

The Orphan was exhibited in 1680. This is one of the few plays that keep poffeffion of the stage, and has pleafed for almoft a century, through all the viciffitudes of dramatick fashion. Of this play nothing new can eafily be faid. It is a domeftick tragedy drawn from middle life. Its whole power is upon the affections; for it is not written with much comprehenfion of thought, or elegance of expreffion. But if the heart is interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be miffed.

The fame year produced The History and Fall of Caius Marius; much of which is borrowed from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakspeare.

In 1683* was published the firft, and next year the fecond, parts of The Soldier's Fortune, two comedies now forgotten; and in 1685 his laft and greatest dramatick work, Venice Preferved, a tragedy, which ftill continues to be one of the favourites of the publick, notwithstanding the want of morality in the original defign, and the defpicable fcenes of

* 1681.

† 1684.

+1682.

vile comedy with which he has diverfified his tragick action. By comparing this with his Orphan, it will appear that his images were by time become stronger, and his language more energetick. The ftriking paffages are in every mouth; and the publick feems to judge rightly of the faults and excellences 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 breast.

Together with thofe plays he wrote the poems which are in the prefent collection, and translated from the French the History 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, almoft naked in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-houfe, afked him for a fhilling. The gentleman gave him a guinca; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was 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, preffed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him to the grave.

Of the poems which the prefent 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 verfes to have been a zealous royalift, 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. Dr. J.

WALLER.

WALL E R.

EDMUND WALLER was born on the third of March, 1605, at Colfhill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Efquire, of Agmondefham in Buckinghamshire, whofe family was originally a branch of the Kentifh 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 a yearly income of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value of money and the cuftoms of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thoufand at the present time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, 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 First, where he heard a very remarkable converfation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who feems