No More Learning

He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated and
recorded. When the duke of York's influence was high, both in Scotland
and England, it drew, says Burnet, a lively reflection from Waller, the
celebrated wit. He said "the house of commons had resolved that the duke
should not reign after the king's death; but the king, in opposition to
them, had resolved that he should reign, even in his life. " If there
appear no extraordinary liveliness in this remark, yet its reception
proves the speaker to have been a celebrated wit, to have had a name
which the men of wit were proud of mentioning.

He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may easily
happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to poetical distinction,
from time to time, as occasions were offered, either by publick events
or private incidents; and, contenting himself with the influence of his
muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office
of magistracy.

He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune; for he asked
from the king, in 1665, the provostship of Eton college, and obtained
it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that
it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that sir Henry Wotton
qualified himself for it by deacon's orders.

To this opposition the Biographia imputes the violence and acrimony with
which Waller joined Buckingham's faction in the prosecution of Clarendon.
The motive was illiberal and dishonest, and showed that more than sixty
years had not been able to teach him morality. His accusation is such as
conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate, without the help of malice:
"We were to be governed by janizaries, instead of parliaments, and are in
danger from a worse plot than that of the fifth of November; then, if the
lords and commons had been destroyed, there had been a succession; but
here both had been destroyed for ever. " This is the language of a man
who is glad of an opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice truth to
interest, at one time, and to anger, at another.

A year after the chancellor's banishment, another vacancy gave him
encouragement for another petition, which the king referred to the
council, who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for three
days, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman,
according to the act of uniformity, since the provosts had always
received institution, as for a parsonage, from the bishops of Lincoln.
The king then said, he could not break the law which he had made; and Dr.
Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most, for two sermons,
was chosen by the fellows.

That he asked any thing else is not known; it is certain that he obtained
nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court through the rest of
Charles's reign.

At the accession of king James, in 1685, he was chosen for parliament,
being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of the
Downfal of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king, on his
birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator, Fenton, that, in reading
Tasso, he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the holy war,
and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left him. James, however,
having soon after begun what he thought a holy war at home, made haste to
put all molestation of the Turks out of his power.

James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instances are
given by the writer of his life. One day, taking him into the closet, the
king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: "My eyes," said Waller,
"are dim, and I do not know it. " The king said it was the princess of
Orange. "She is," said Waller, "like the greatest woman in the world. "
The king asked who was that; and was answered, queen Elizabeth. "I
wonder," said the king, "you should think so; but I must confess she
had a wise council. " "And, sir," said Waller, "did you ever know a fool
choose a wise one? " Such is the story, which I once heard of some other
man. Pointed axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the world, and
are assigned, successively, to those whom it may be the fashion to
celebrate.

When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. Birch,
a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him, that "the king
wondered he could think of marrying his daughter to a falling church. "
"The king," said Waller, "does me great honour, in taking notice of my
domestick affairs; but I have lived long enough to observe that this
falling church has got a trick of rising again. "

He took notice to his friends of the king's conduct; and said that "he
would be left like a whale upon the strand. " Whether he was privy to any
of the transactions which ended in the revolution, is not known. His heir
joined the prince of Orange.

Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom suffer
life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, he seems to have
turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive hour, and, therefore,
consecrated his poetry to devotion. It is pleasing to discover that
his piety was without weakness; that his intellectual powers continued
vigorous; and that the lines which he composed when "he, for age, could
neither read nor write," are not inferiour to the effusions of his youth.

Towards the decline of life, he bought a small house, with a little land,
at Coleshill; and said, "he should be glad to die, like the stag,
where he was roused. " This, however, did not happen. When he was at
Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid; he went to Windsor, where sir
Charles Scarborough then attended the king, and requested him, as both a
friend and a physician, to tell him, "What that swelling meant. " "Sir,"
answered Scarborough, "your blood will run no longer. " Waller repeated
some lines of Virgil, and went home to die.

As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure;
and, calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, he desired
his children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of his
faith in christianity. It now appeared what part of his conversation
with the great could be remembered with delight. He related, that being
present when the duke of Buckingham talked profanely before king Charles,
he said to him, "My lord, I am a great deal older than your grace, and
have, I believe, heard more arguments for atheism than ever your grace
did; but I have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and
so, I hope, your grace will. "

He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a monument
erected by his son's executors, for which Rymer wrote the inscription,
and which, I hope, is now rescued from dilapidation.

He left several children by his second wife; of whom, his daughter was
married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, was disinherited, and
sent to New Jersey, as wanting common understanding. Edmund, the second
son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament,
but, at last, turned quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in
London. Stephen, the fourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, and one of
the commissioners for the union. There is said to have been a fifth, of
whom no account has descended.

The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn by
Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which certainly
none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. It is, therefore,
inserted here, with such remarks as others have supplied; after which,
nothing remains but a critical examination of his poetry.

"Edmund Waller," says Clarendon, "was born to a very fair estate, by the
parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother: and he thought it
so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve it with his
utmost care, upon which, in his nature, he was too much intent; and, in
order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarce
ever heard of, till, by his address and dexterity, he had gotten a very
rich wife in the city, against all the recommendation and countenance and
authority of the court, which was thoroughly engaged on the behalf of
Mr. Crofts, and which used to be successful, in that age, against any
opposition. He had the good fortune to have an alliance and friendship
with Dr. Morley, who had assisted and instructed him in the reading many
good books, to which his natural parts and promptitude inclined him,
especially the poets; and, at the age when other men used to give over
writing verses, (for he was near thirty years when he first engaged
himself in that exercise, at least that he was known to do so,) he
surprised the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth
muse had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The doctor, at that
time, brought him into that company which was most celebrated for good
conversation; where he was received and esteemed with great applause and
respect. He was a very pleasant discourser, in earnest and in jest, and,
therefore, very grateful to all kind of company, where he was not the
less esteemed for being very rich.

"He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was very
young; and so, when they were resumed again, (after a long intermission,)
he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage; having a graceful
way of speaking, and by thinking much on several arguments, (which his
temper and complexion, that had much of melancholick, inclined him to,)
he seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when the occasion had only
administered the opportunity of saying what he had thoroughly considered,
which gave a great lustre to all he said; which yet was rather of delight
than weight. There needs no more be said to extol the excellence and
power of his wit, and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was
of magnitude enough to cover a world of very great faults; that is, so to
cover them, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach; viz. a
narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness and want of
courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an insinuation and
servile flattery to the height, the vainest and most imperious nature
could be contented with; that it preserved and won his life from those
who were most resolved to take it, and in an occasion in which he ought
to have been ambitious to have lost it; and then preserved him again from
the reproach and contempt that was due to him for so preserving it, and
for vindicating it at such a price; that it had power to reconcile him to
those whom he had most offended and provoked; and continued to his age
with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit
was odious; and he was, at least, pitied where he was most detested. "

Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper to make
some remarks.

"He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the city. "

He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age before
which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He was known,
however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part of his time
in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that he endeavoured the
improvement of his mind, as well as of his fortune.

That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the more
probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of his
poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before thirty. As
his first pieces were, perhaps, not printed, the succession of his
compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to
have been very studious of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion by
consulting Waller's book.

Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by Dr.
Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was already among
them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the cause, they
found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, whom Waller
set free, at the expense of one hundred pounds, took him into the country
as director of his studies, and then procured him admission into the
company of the friends of literature. Of this fact Clarendon had a nearer
knowledge than the biographer, and is, therefore, more to be credited.

The account of Waller's parliamentary eloquence is seconded by Burnet,
who, though he calls him "the delight of the house," adds, that "he was
only concerned to say that which should make him be applauded; he never
laid the business of the house to heart, being a vain and empty, though a
witty man. "

Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe that
the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of those whom, in
modern language, we term wits, says, that they are "open flatterers, and
privy mockers. " Waller showed a little of both, when, upon sight of the
dutchess of Newcastle's verses on the Death of a Stag, he declared that
he would give all his own compositions to have written them; and, being
charged with the exorbitance of his adulation, answered, that "nothing
was too much to be given, that a lady might be saved from the disgrace of
such a vile performance. " This, however, was no very mischievous or very
unusual deviation from truth: had his hypocrisy been confined to such
transactions, he might have been forgiven, though not praised; for who
forbears to flatter an author or a lady.

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his
resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem of
every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from Charles the
second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his
relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's son.

As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and his
conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. His
deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connexion with Hampden,
for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the
invective which he pronounced on that occasion was so popular, that
twenty thousand copies are said, by his biographer, to have been sold in
one day.

It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at least
many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is universally
acknowledged; but those who conversed with him intimately, found him not
only passionate, especially in his old age, but resentful; so that the
interposition of friends was sometimes necessary.

His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers
of his time: he was joined with lord Buckhurst in the translation of
Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added his help to that of Cowley
in the original draught of the Rehearsal.

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him, in a degree
little less than criminal, was either not constant or not successful;
for, having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred pounds a
year in the time of James the first, and augmented it, at least, by one
wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of the revolution, an income of
not more than twelve or thirteen hundred; which, when the different value
of money is reckoned, will be found, perhaps, not more than a fourth part
of what he once possessed.

Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts which he was
forced to scatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the
detection of his plot; and if his estate, as is related in his life, was
sequestered, he had probably contracted debts when he lived in exile;
for we are told, that at Paris he lived in splendour, and was the only
Englishman, except the lord St. Albans, that kept a table.

His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the waste
of the rest there is no account, except that he is confessed, by his
biographer, to have been a bad economist. He seems to have deviated from
the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a
squanderer in his last.

Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known more than
that he professed himself unable to read Chapman's translation of Homer,
without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a poet is contained
in his declaration, that "he would blot from his works any line that did
not contain some motive to virtue. "

* * * * *
The characters, by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings, are
sprightliness 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 source is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence
which has descended to us from the Gothick ages. As his poems are
commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, he was not so liberally
supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more easily found
than magnanimity.

The delicacy which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicety
and caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He has,
therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldom any thing
ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best; though his
subjects are often unworthy of his care. It is not easy to think without
some contempt on an author who is growing illustrious in his own opinion
by verses, at one time, to a Lady who can do any thing but sleep when she
pleases; at another, to a Lady who can sleep when she pleases; now, to a
Lady on her passing 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 missing.

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of
Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself
with a performance, which owes nothing to the subject. But compositions
merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in
time for something useful: they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of
short duration; or they are blossoms to be valued only as they foretell
fruits. Among Waller's little poems are some which their excellency ought
to secure from oblivion; as, to Amoret, comparing the different modes
of regard, with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and the verses on
Love, that begin, "Anger in hasty words or blows. "

In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts are
deficient, and sometimes his expression.

The numbers are not always musical; as,

Fair Venus, in thy soft arms
The god of rage confine:
For thy whispers are the charms
Which only can divert his fierce design.
What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;
Thou the flame
Kindled in his breast canst tame
With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.

He seldom, indeed, fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of
science; his thoughts are, for the most part, easily understood, and his
images such as the superficies 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 philosophical pedantry, unless, perhaps,
the end of a song to the sun may be excepted, in which he is too much a
Copernican. To which may be added, the simile of the palm in the verses,
on her passing through a crowd; and a line in a more serious poem on the
Restoration, about vipers and treacle, which can only be understood by
those who happen to know the composition of the Theriaca.

His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical, and his images unnatural:

The plants admire,
No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre:
If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd,
They round about her into arbours crowd:
Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand,
Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band.

In another place:

While in the park I sing, the listening deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear:
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same:
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers,
With loud complaints they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven!

On the head of a stag:

O fertile head! which every year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming earth did never bring,
So soon so hard, so huge a thing:
Which might it never have been cast,
Each year's growth added to the last,
These lofty branches had supply'd
The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride:
Heaven with these engines had been scal'd,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.

Sometimes, having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble
conclusion. In the song of Sacharissa's and Amoret's Friendship, the two
last stanzas ought to have been omitted.

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

Then shall my love this doubt displace.
And gain such trust, that I may come
And banquet sometimes on thy face,
But make my constant meals at home.

Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; as in
the verses on the Lady Dancing:

The sun in figures such as these
Joys with the moon to play:
To the sweet strains they advance,
Which do result from their own spheres;
As this nymph's dance
Moves with the numbers which she hears.

Sometimes a thought, which might, perhaps, fill a distich, is expanded
and attenuated, till it grows weak and almost evanescent:

Chloris! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kind.
So the fair tree, which still preserves
Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows,
In storms from that uprightness swerves;
And the glad earth about her strows
With treasure from her yielding boughs.

His images are not always distinct; as, in the following passage, he
confounds love, as a person, with love, as a passion:

Some other nymphs, with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart, in time, destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy:
Can, with a single look, inflame
The coldest breast, the rudest tame.

His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and happy, as that
in Return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, as that
upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few Lines written in the
Dutchess's Tasso, which he is said, by Fenton, to have kept a summer
under correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, that his success
was not always in proportion to his labour.

Of these petty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults deserve
much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, that
they are less hyperbolical than those of some other poets. Waller is not
always at the last gasp; he does not die of a frown, nor live upon a
smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many trifles. Little
things are made too important; and the empire of beauty is represented as
exerting its influence further than can be allowed by the multiplicity of
human passions, and the variety of human wants. Such books, therefore,
may be considered, as showing the world under a false appearance, and, so
far as they obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading
expectation, and misguiding practice.

Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is
panegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by his
imitator, lord Lansdowne:

No satyr stalks within the hallow'd ground,
But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;
Glory and arms and love are all the sound.

In the first poem, on the danger of the Prince on the coast of Spain,
there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion, at the beginning; and
the last paragraph, on the Cable, is, in part, ridiculously mean, and in
part, ridiculously tumid. The poem, however, is such as may be justly
praised, without much allowance for the state of our poetry and language
at that time.

The two next poems are upon the king's behaviour at the death of
Buckingham, and upon his navy.

He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great propriety:

'Twas want of such a precedent as this,
Made the old heathen frame their gods amiss.

In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble, which suppose the
king's power secure against a second deluge; so noble, that it were
almost criminal to remark the mistake of _centre_ for _surface_, or to
say that the empire of the sea would be worth little, if it were not that
the waters terminate in land.

The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the conclusion is
feeble. That on the Repairs of St. Paul's has something vulgar and
obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent and harsh;
as,

So all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that, like a chain,
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again:

Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injur'd side.

Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second mean.

His praise of the queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that
she "saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by lopping
the limb," presents nothing to the mind but disgust and horrour.

Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say whether it
is intended to raise terrour or merriment. The beginning is too splendid
for jest, and the conclusion too light for seriousness. The versification
is studied, the scenes are diligently displayed, and the images artfully
amplified; but, as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be
read a second time.

The Panegyrick upon Cromwell has obtained from the publick a very liberal
dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have been unjustly
lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in the
English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, and all
are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought;
but its great fault is the choice of its hero.

The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and
striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts
are variegated with better passages and worse. There is something too
far-fetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on,
by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening the lion by
bleating. " The fate of the marquis and his lady, who were burnt in their
ship, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the
Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor expressed their affection
and their end, by a conceit, at once, false and vulgar:

Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,
And now together are to ashes turn'd.

The verses to Charles on his Return were doubtless intended to
counterbalance the Panegyrick on Cromwell. If it has been thought
inferiour to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its
deficience has been already remarked.

The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They must be
supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with the rest. The
Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they were the work of
Waller's declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the
fame and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his great
predecessor, Petrarch, bequeathed to posterity, upon his review of that
love and poetry which have given him immortality.

That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much
excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the
mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to
confess superiour, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. By
delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead;
and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the
exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his
fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion.
Intellectual decay is, doubtless, not uncommon; but it seems not to
be universal. Newton was, in his eighty-fifth year, improving his
chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my
opinion, to have lost, at eighty-two, any part of his poetical power.

His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before
the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success
would hardly have been better.

It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too
little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been
made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have very seldom
attained their end, is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper
to inquire, why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I
advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot
often please. The doctrines of religion may, indeed, be defended in a
didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will
not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty
and the grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvests
of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky,
and praise the maker for his works, in lines which no reader shall lay
aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to
piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.

Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul,
cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his creator,
and plead the merits of his redeemer, is already in a higher state than
poetry can confer.

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing
something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are
few, and, being few, are universally known; but, few as they are, they
can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment,
and very little from novelty of expression.

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than
things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those
parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel
the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and
addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.

From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always
obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy;
but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion.
Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name
of the supreme being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; infinity cannot
be amplified; perfection cannot be improved. The employments of pious
meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication. Faith,
invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations.
Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a
being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt
rather than expressed. Repentance, trembling in the presence of the
judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of
man to man may diffuse itself through many topicks of persuasion; but
supplication to God can only cry for mercy.

Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple
expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power,
because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than
itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory, and delight
the ear, and, for these purposes, it may be very useful; but it supplies
nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for
eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to
recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify, by a concave mirror,
the sidereal hemisphere.

As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness
of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to
which a versifier must attend.

He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who
were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had
attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or
forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might
have studied with advantage the poem of Davies[m86], which, though merely
philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.

But he was rather smooth than strong; of "the full resounding line,"
which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The
critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of
sweetness to Waller.

His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the
expletive _do_ very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost,
universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last
compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and
finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.

His rhymes are sometimes weak words: _so_ is found to make the rhyme
twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.
His double rhymes, in heroick verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips,
who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's Pompey; and more
faults might be found, were not the inquiry below attention.

He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as _waxeth,
affecteth_; and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite,
as _amazed, supposed_, of which I know not whether it is not to the
detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.

Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an
alexandrine he has given no example.

The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He is never
pathetick, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind
much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such
as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily
supply. They had, however, then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which
they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found
them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This
treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators.

Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of Waller's
life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythraeus and some
late criticks call alliteration, of using in the same verse many words
beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value,
was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of
the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against affecting it;
Shakespeare, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, is supposed to ridicule it;
and, in another play, the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.

He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old
mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets;
the deities which they introduced so frequently, were considered as
realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober
reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished
the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never
afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a
transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much
exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his club, he has his navy.

But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will
remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance
of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be
applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and
Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out "if he had
not read Aminta, he had never excelled it. "

As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from
Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work,
which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will, perhaps, not be soon
reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the
reader may judge how much he improved it.

1.

Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore
Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,
Her feeble hand the bridle reines forlore,
Halfe in a swoune she was for feare, I weene;
But her flit courser spared nere the more,
To beare her through the desart woods unseene
Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine,
And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine.

2.

Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,
No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:
The christian knights so full of shame and ire
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!
Yet still the fearfull dame fled, swift as winde,
Nor ever staid, nor ever lookt behinde.

3.

Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she drived,
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,
Her plaints and teares with every thought revived,
She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.
But when the sunne his burning chariot dived
In Thetis wave, and wearie teame untide,
On Jordans sandie bankes her course she staid,
At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid.

4.

Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,
This was her diet that unhappie night:
But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)
To ease the greefes of discontented wight,
Spred foorth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,
In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;
And love, his mother, and the graces kept
Strong watch and warde, while this faire ladie slept.

5.

The birds awakte her with their morning song,
Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,
The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among
The ratling boughes, and leaves, their parts did beare;
Her eies unclos'd beheld the groves along
Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare:
And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,
Provokte againe the virgin to lament.

6.

Her plaints were interrupted with a sound
That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed,
Some iolly shepheard sung a lustie round,
And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;
Thither she went, an old man there she found,
(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)
Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among,
That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song.

7.

Beholding one in shining armes appeare,
The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;
But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,
Her ventall vp, her visage open laid.
You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare,
Work on (quoth she) vpon your harmlesse traid,
These dreadfull armes, I beare, no warfare bring
To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes you sing.

8.

But father, since this land, these townes and towres,
Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,
How may it be, unhurt, that you and yours
In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?
My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours
Is euer safe from storme of warlike broile;
This wildernesse doth vs in safetie keepe,
No thundring drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.

9.

Haply iust heau'n's defence and shield of right,
Doth loue the innocence of simple swaines,
The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,
And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines:
So kings haue cause to feare Bellonaes might,
Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,
Nor ever greedie soldier was entised
By pouertie, neglected and despised.

10.

O pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood,
Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!
No wish for honour, thirst of other's good,
Can moue my hart, contented with my owne:
We quench our thirst with water of this flood,
Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne:
These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates
Giue milke for food, and wooll to make us coates.

11.

We little wish, we need but little wealth,
From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;
These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth
Their father's flocks, nor servants moe I need:
Amid these groues I walke oft for my health,
And to the fishes, birds, and beastes giue heed,
How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,
And their contentment for ensample take.

12.

Time was (for each one hath his doting time,
These siluer locks were golden tresses than)
That countrie life I hated as a crime,
And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,
To Memphis stately pallace would I clime,
And there became the mightie Caliphes man,
And though I but a simple gardner weare,
Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.

13.

Entised on with hope of future gaine,
I suffred long what did my soule displease;
But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,
I felt my native strength at last decrease;
I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,
And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;
I bod the court farewell, and with content
My later age here have I quiet spent.

14.

While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still
His wise discourses heard, with great attention,
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,
Till fortune should occasion new afford,
To turne her home to her desired lord.

15.

She said, therefore, O shepherd fortunate!
That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue,
Yet liuest now in this contented state,
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,
To entertaine me, as a willing mate
In shepherd's life, which I admire and loue;
Within these pleasant groues, perchance, my hart
Of her discomforts may vnload some part.

16.

If gold or wealth, of most esteemed deare,
If iewells rich, thou diddest hold in prise,
Such store thereof, such plentie have I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well suffice:
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,
Two christall streams fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her sad misfortunes than she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.

17.

With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.
The princesse dond a poore pastoraes geare,
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.

18.

Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angel's face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.

[Footnote 82: Preface to his Fables. Dr. J. ]

[Footnote 83: This speech has been retrieved, from a paper printed at
that time, by the writers of the Parliamentary History. Dr. J. ]

[Footnote 84: Parliamentary History, vol. xii. Dr. J. ]

[Footnote 85: Life of Waller prefixed to an edition of his works,
published in 1773, by Percival Stockdale. C. ]

[Footnote 86: Sir John Davies, entitled, Nosce Teipsum. This oracle
expounded in two elegies; 1. Of Humane Knowledge: 2. Of the Soule of Man
and the Immortalitie thereof, 1599. R. ]

[Footnote 87: It has been conjectured that our poet was either son or
grandson of Charles, third son of sir John Stepney, the first baronet of
that family. See Granger's History, vol. ii. p. 396. Edit. 8vo. 1775. Mr.
Cole says, the poet's father was a grocer. Cole's manuscripts, in Brit.
Mus. C. ]




POMFRET.

Of Mr. John Pomfret nothing is known but from a slight and confused
account, prefixed to his poems by a nameless friend; who relates, that he
was the son of the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton, in Bedfordshire;
that he was bred at Cambridge[87], entered into orders, and was rector of
Malden, in Bedfordshire, and might have risen in the church; but that,
when he applied to Dr. Compton, bishop of London, for institution to a
living of considerable value, to which he had been presented, he found
a troublesome obstruction raised by a malicious interpretation of some
passage in his Choice; from which it was inferred, that he considered
happiness as more likely to be found in the company of a mistress than of
a wife.

This reproach was easily obliterated; for it had happened to Pomfret, as
to almost all other men who plan schemes of life; he had departed from
his purpose, and was then married.

The malice of his enemies had, however, a very fatal consequence: the
delay constrained his attendance in London, where he caught the smallpox,
and died in 1703, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.

He published his poems in 1699; and has been always the favourite of that
class of readers, who, without vanity or criticism, seek only their own
amusement.

His Choice exhibits a system of life adapted to common notions, and equal
to common expectations; such a state as affords plenty and tranquillity,
without exclusion of intellectual pleasures. Perhaps no composition in
our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's Choice.

In his other poems there is an easy volubility; the pleasure of smooth
metre is afforded to the ear, and the mind is not oppressed with
ponderous, or entangled with intricate, sentiment. He pleases many; and
he who pleases many must have some species of merit.

[Footnote 87: He was of Queen's college there, and, by the University
Register, took his bachelor's degree in 1684, and master's in 1698. His
father was of Trinity. ]




DORSET.

Of the earl of Dorset the character has been drawn so largely and so
elegantly by Prior, to whom he was familiarly known, that nothing can be
added by a casual hand; and, as its author is so generally read, it would
be useless officiousness to transcribe it.

Charles Sackville was born January 24, 1637. Having been educated under a
private tutor, he travelled into Italy, and returned a little before the
restoration. He was chosen into the first parliament that was called, for
East Grimstead, in Sussex, and soon became a favourite of Charles the
second; but undertook no publick employment, being too eager of the
riotous and licentious pleasures, which young men of high rank, who
aspired to be thought wits, at that time imagined themselves entitled to
indulge.

One of these frolicks has, by the industry of Wood, come down to
posterity. Sackville, who was then lord Buckhurst, with sir Charles
Sedley and sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock in Bow street, by
Covent garden, and, going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the
populace in very indecent postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley
stood forth naked and harangued the populace in such profane language,
that the publick indignation was awakened: the crowd attempted to force
the door, and, being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones, and
broke the windows of the house.

For this misdemeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was fined five
hundred pounds: what was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley
employed Killigrew and another to procure a remission from the king;
but (mark the friendship of the dissolute! ) they begged the fine for
themselves, and exacted it to the last groat. In 1665, lord Buckhurst
attended the duke of York, as a volunteer in the Dutch war; and was
in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great Dutch ships were taken,
fourteen others were destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who engaged the
duke, was blown up beside him, with all his crew.

On the day before the battle, he is said to have composed the celebrated
song, "To all you ladies now at land," with equal tranquillity of mind
and promptitude of wit. Seldom any splendid story is wholly true. I
have heard from the late earl of Orrery, who was likely to have good
hereditary intelligence, that lord Buckhurst had been a week employed
upon it, and only retouched or finished it on the memorable evening. But
even this, whatever it may subtract from his facility, leaves him his
courage.

He was soon after made a gentleman of the bedchamber, and sent on short
embassies to France.

In 1674, the estate of his uncle, James Cranfield, earl of Middlesex,
came to him by its owner's death, and the title was conferred on him
the year after. In 1677, he became, by the death of his father, earl of
Dorset, and inherited the estate of his family.

In 1684, having buried his first wife, of the family of Bagot, who
left him no child, he married a daughter of the earl of Northampton,
celebrated both for beauty and understanding.

He received some favourable notice from king James; but soon found it
necessary to oppose the violence of his innovations, and with some other
lords appeared in Westminster hall to countenance the bishops at their
trial.

As enormities grew every day less supportable, he found it necessary to
concur in the revolution. He was one of those lords who sat every day in
council to preserve the publick peace, after the king's departure; and,
what is not the most illustrious action of his life, was employed to
conduct the princess Anne to Nottingham with a guard, such as might alarm
the populace, as they passed, with false apprehensions of her danger.
Whatever end may be designed, there is always something despicable in a
trick.

He became, as may be easily supposed, a favourite of king William, who,
the day after his accession, made him lord chamberlain of the household,
and gave him afterwards the garter. He happened to be among those that
were tossed with the king in an open boat sixteen hours, in very rough
and cold weather, on the coast of Holland. His health afterwards
declined; and, on Jan. 19, 1705-6, he died at Bath.

He was a man whose elegance and judgment were universally confessed,
and whose bounty to the learned and witty was generally known. To the
indulgent affection of the publick, lord Rochester bore ample testimony
in this remark: "I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he
will, yet is never in the wrong. "

If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were
praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by his
beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not
known to have so well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of
our own country superiour to those of antiquity, says, "I would instance
your lordship in satire, and Shakespeare in tragedy. " Would it be
imagined that, of this rival to antiquity, all the satires were little
personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of
eleven stanzas?

The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast,
not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the
effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verses to Howard
show great fertility of mind; and his Dorinda has been imitated by Pope.


STEPNEY.


George Stepney, descended from the Stepneys of Pendegrast, in
Pembrokeshire, was born at Westminster, in 1663. Of his father's
condition or fortune I have no account[88]. Having received the first
part of his education at Westminster, where he passed six years in the
college, he went, at nineteen, to Cambridge[p], where he continued a
friendship begun at school with Mr. Montague, afterwards earl of Halifax.
They came to London together, and are said to have been invited into
publick life by the duke of Dorset[89].

His qualifications recommended him to many foreign employments, so that
his time seems to have been spent in negotiations. In 1692, he was sent
envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; in 1693, to the imperial court; in
1694, to the elector of Saxony; in 1696, to the electors of Mentz and
Cologne, and the congress at Frankfort; in 1698, a second time to
Brandenburgh; in 1699, to the king of Poland; in 1701, again to the
emperour; and, in 1706, to the States General. In 1697, he was made one
of the commissioners of trade. His life was busy and not long. He died in
1707, and is buried in Westminster Abbey, with this epitaph, which Jacob
transcribed:

H. S. E.
GEORGIUS STEPNEIUS, armiger,
Vir,
Ob ingenii acumen,
Literarum scientiam,
Morum suavitatem,
Rerum usum,

Virorum amplissimorum consuetudinem,
Linguae, styli, ac vitae elegantiam,
Praeclara officia cum Britanniae tum Europae praestita,
Sua aetate multum celebratus,
Apud posteros semper celebrandus;
Plurimas legationes obijt
Ea fide, diligentia, ac felicitate,
Ut augustissimorum principum
Gulielmi et Annae
Spem in illo repositam
Numquam fefellerit,
Haud raro superaverit.
Post longum honorum cursum
Brevi temporis spatio confectum,
Cum naturae parum, famae satis vixerat,
Animam ad altiora aspirantem placide efflavit.

On the left hand,

G. S.
Ex equestri familia Stepneiorum,
De Pendegrast, in comitatu
Pembrochiensi oriundus,
Westmonasterii natus est, A. D. 1663,
Electus in collegium
Sancti Petri Westmonast. A. 1676,
Sancti Trinitatis Cantab. 1682.
Consiliariorum quibus Commercii
Cura commissa est 1697.
Chelseiae mortuus, et, comitante
Magna procerum
Frequentia, hue elatus, 1707.

It is reported that the juvenile compositions of Stepney "made grey
authors blush. " I know not whether his poems will appear such wonders to
the present age. One cannot always easily find the reason for which the
world has sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is not very unlikely
that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances
of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to
publick honours, and are, therefore, not considered as rivals by the
distributors of fame.

He apparently professed himself a poet, and added his name to those of
the other wits in the version of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious
translator, and does not recompense his neglect of the author by beauties
of his own. In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may,
perhaps, be found, and, now and then, a short composition may give
pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit,
or the vigour of nature.

[Footnote 88: He was entered of Trinity college, and took his master's
degree in 1689. H. ]

[Footnote 89: Earl of Dorset. ]




J. PHILIPS.

John Philips was born on the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, in
Oxfordshire; of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeacon
of Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestick;
after which he was sent to Winchester, where, as we are told by Dr.
Sewel, his biographer, he was soon distinguished by the superiority of
his exercises; and, what is less easily to be credited, so much endeared
himself to his schoolfellows, by his civility and good nature, that
they, without murmur or ill will, saw him indulged by the master with
particular immunities. It is related, that, when he was at school, he
seldom mingled in play with the other boys, but retired to his chamber;
where his sovereign pleasure was to sit, hour after hour, while his hair
was combed by somebody, whose service he found means to procure. [90]

At school he became acquainted with the poets, ancient and modern, and
fixed his attention particularly on Milton.

In 1694, he entered himself at Christ church; a college, at that time, in
the highest reputation, by the transmission of Busby's scholars to the
care first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. Here he was distinguished
as a genius eminent among the eminent, and for friendship particularly
intimate with Mr. Smith, the author of Phaedra and Hippolytus. The
profession which he intended to follow was that of physick; and he took
much delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part.

His reputation was confined to his friends and to the university; till,
about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle by the Splendid Shilling,
which struck the publick attention with a mode of writing new and
unexpected.

This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded with
the victory of Blenheim, he was, probably, with an occult opposition to
Addison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is said
that he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friends
urged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr.
St. John.

Blenheim was published in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work,
the poem upon Cider, in two books; which was received with loud praises,
and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's Georgicks,
which needed not shun the presence of the original.

He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began to
meditate a poem on the Last Day; a subject on which no mind can hope to
equal expectation.