Evremond, are sustained with skill and propriety. We can, in some measure, perceive their national distinctions, and can trace_the_gay, fantastick Frenchman in St. Evremond, and the thoughtful Englishman in Waller. About this time, too, the manners and principles of the courts began to be brought near the same standard; the same polish and elegance of behaviour, the same refinement of wit, the same contempt of religion characterized both. A recurrence, therefore, of the same ideas, and a coincidence of thought and sentiment, from more than one cause, are to be expected on both sides of this correspondence. Minds cast after the same mould, like those of Waller and St. Evremond, harmonize in all their antipathies and prepossessions. They are bound together by kindred ties, and connected by a secret and unalterable sympathy.

Edmund Waller, one of the finest poets and geniuses of his time, was born in March, 1605. The first part of his life was remarkable for a feat of gallantry in which he displayed some spirit and address. He also early embarked in politicks, not with that success, however, which might have left his character fair and unimpeached. The pusillanimity and weakness he manifested on one occasion, nothing but his shining talents as a wit could have prevented from covering his name with perpetual dishonour. He was the author of a plot in which he basely deserted and betrayed his associates. Chesterfield, speaking of his manners, says they were contemptible, and that he always spoke with a silly and disgusting grin upon his countenance. This, says he, to those who were unacquainted with Mr. Waller's endowments, gave him the air of an idiot. Concerning the cloud of infamy which obscures Waller's political character, we may observe that those who are beloved by the muses are seldom calculated to shine in the cabinet and council. Camoens wieldVOL. III.

ed the sword and the pen with equal success, but we have never found the politick and intriguing mind of a Mazarine united with the wit and fancy of a Cowley. There seems to be a fatal incapacity for a busy and active life attendant on all born with a highly poetical turn of mind. To repose in the shades of some sequestered forest and listen to the murmurs of its fountains; or to be rapt by the enchantment of fancy into the ideal retreats of Armida, constitute the poet's sole delight. That illusive sensibility which enables him to paint to the passions, and to rule imperiously the sympathies of the heart, is the source of those errours that mislead his understanding. Some of the highest favourites of Apollo have been the victims of shame and misfortune. Dwelling in the emporium of poetry, they are too much transported by the intoxicating afflatus of the god, to look down from their elevation, on humble and terrestrial objects.

Waller complimented the usurper, though he detested him in his heart, and exhausted his remaining stores of panegyrick in congratulating Charles the Second, on his restoration. Being told by that monarch that his praise of Cromwell surpassed his congratulatory address, he replied: "Poets succeed best in fiction." To this eulogium on Cromwell, St. Evremond alludes in his second letter.—

"What arts of ingenious blandishment were exerted to sooth the usurper, and to soften the idea of usurpation! I remember that the finest poet of the age lent his persuasive powers to effect these purposes. I own, I do not envy the reputation he acquired by it, when I consider that there are, in the next world, such people as Minos, Rhadamanthus and Eacus."

Had the easy and voluptuous Charles been endowed with the vindictive spirit of Sixtus Quintus, or of some of his predecessors, he would for ever have incapacitated the poet for future libels or pane gyricks. Waller, however, escapet

with impunity, and was permitted to increase the galaxy of wits that shone around the person of that gay and facetious monarch, and truly not a more dazzling star gilded the hemisphere of his brilliant court. Waller was a great refiner of the English language, and among the first who improved the structure and cadence of its verse. He sub

jected its rude genius to the laws of just and harmonious metre, and evidently led the way to that style of poetical numbers, which we find developed in the versification of Dry. den and Pope. For those who are anxious for a specimen of his poetical talents, we select the following lines, not more remarkable for the harmony and numerousness of the verse, than for the delicacy and propriety of the thought.

On my lady Isabella playing on the lute.

"Such moving sounds, from such a careless touch!

So unconcerned herself, and we so much! What art is this, that with so little pains Transports us thus, and o'er our spirits reigns?

The trembling strings about her fingers crowd,

And tell their joy for every kiss aloud: Small force there needs to make them tremble so;

Touched by that hand, who would not tremble too?

Here love takes stand, and, while she

charms the ear,

Empties his quiver on the list'ning deer: Musick so softens, and disarms the mind That not an arrow does resistance find.

Thus the fair tyrant celebrates the prize, And acts herself the triumph of her eyes: So Nero once, with harp in hand, surveyed,

His flaming Rome, and as it burned, he played."

The heart and genius of Waller is strongly stamped upon some of these epistles. They have that pensive and melancholy cast of thought which gave so much delicacy and sweetness to his poetry. Sometimes his fancy blazes with the fire and rapture of ecstacy, as in the following:

"I never think of the glorious fate of ancient genius, without a sigh that rises from the most sensible part of my soul. Je meurs D'envie, which is descriptive of You have an expression in your language,

it. To be carried down the current of time, my St. Evremond, undestroyed by the wrecks of two thousand years! To have our best productions, the productions of the mind, confirm and maintain their existence in the souls of surviving ages, when our ashes have been so long the

sport of winds, that even the winds cannot find them. Heavens! what glory is in the hope! my soul is on fire at the prospect! The spirit of this ambition is irresistible! It is enchantment! It is magick!”

covered symptoms of that fatal senIn the twenty second letter are dissibility, which diversifies the poet's life with the dreams of Elysium, or the pains of distress. Waller died on the 21st October, 1687.

Charles de St. Denis de St. Evremond, descended from an ancient and illustrious family of Lower Normandy, was born at St. Denis le Guast on the 11th of April, 1613. He early devoted his talents to the profession of arms, and served under the prince of Condé, and others, in several important campaigns. As the pursuits of war and gallantry are usually associated in Frenchmen, the softness and repose of a courtlife were not more congenial to his feelings than the tumult and asperities of the camp. He could freely exchange the blandishing charms and alluring smiles of pleasure for the hardships of "grim visaged war." His character reminds us of these lines in the Henriade:

fight in France, I sat down to write verses in England, and took up the belle passion for the sole end of inspirating and embellishing my poetry.

"If the delight I have experienced in the cultivation of a successful amour, has not been equal to that of a general after victory, neither was it attended with those painful reflections, which the very means and circumstances of conquest, must give to a mind that has the least sensibility. For my part, when I bore arms, though I never went into the field of battle without pleasure, I never quitted it without tears. A strange, ferocious kind of joy that must be, which arises from beholding the bodies

of the brave, either in death, or in chains.

* I found, in the refined philosophy of wit and gallantry, in the religion of love and beauty, and in the conversation and favour of the most distinguished persons of the age, materials of happiness suffi

cient for the whole circle of time."

When Charles II. was restored to his throne, St. Evremond, attended the embassy of the count De Soissons, to the court of that prince. Here he contracted an intimacy with some of the most conspicuous of those who figured in that gay and voluptuous court. His vivacity and accomplishments attracted admirers and gained him friends, of whose liberality and friendship he was destined soon after to avail himself. Though beloved in the army and at court, St. Evremond, not long after his return to France, became the victim of adverse fortune. He had the imprudence to draw upon himself the vengeance of the cardinal Mazarine, from whose resentments he was forced to become a fugitive and an exile. England presented an assylum from persecution, and, in the society and conversation of his former acquaintance, he found that species of solace which is the most healing charm that can be applied to the wounds of misfortune.

It was during this period of his life, that a correspondence between him and Waller is supposed to have taken place.

"In the language and memory of those few friends," Dr. Langhorne has made him to say, "I have in France, I am still pauvre

St. Evremond! comment malheureux ! You will be happy, when I assure yon, that, whatever I might once have wished, there is not one of these compassionate persons with whom I would change my station."

He died at the age of ninety, in September 1703, and was interred at Westminster abbey.

From what we have remarked in these letters, the reader may be enabled to form some judgment of their merits. We shall, therefore, dismiss them, after pointing out and citing some passages which struck us in the perusal, and which appear worthy of note. In the 6th letter, the character of Hobbs is described, and some observations added on the genius of his philosophy, The violent condemnation pronounced on sincerity, in the 8th letter, is justly ascribed to the man who complimented Cromwell, and afterwards made his court to Charles II.

The 12th letter of Waller is employed to reanimate his friend, and to console him on the subject of his

banishment.

"To be reconciled," says he, "implicitly to every event, and to pass through life without anxiety or disappointment, is certainly a most valuable effect of philosophy. This is the object of your ambition, and this is what you will learn from me. No, You would not be without your anxieties; no, St. Evremond, do not deceive yourself. you find a charm in your disappointments that flatters your vanity, when you consider the hardships of suffering merit, and your misfortunes serve to show us how elegantly you can complain.

"Would you loose the pleasure of painting to the dutchess of Mazarine, in such delicate colours, your mutual misfortunes; would you be deprived of the honour of being a fellow sufferer with such a woman? A similarity of sufferings makes people friends."

The 14th letter commences happily:

compelled him to prophecy, could not be more powerful than that you have found out to make me philosophize. For as Proteus, though, possibly, something more of a god, was not by your account, more volatile than myself, nothing less than the

"The charm that bound Proteus, and

magick in the name of Mazarine could have fixed me to the sober point of philosophy."

The 15th, 16th, and 17th letters, contain a sprightly attack and defence of the sex. In the succeeding, the character of Cowley is given with much warmth of panegyrick, and some remarks of a pleasing kind added in the poetical uses of the heathen mythology. The 20th

letter announces the death of the

dutchess of Mazarine. This lady, in whose praise St. Evremond was so lavish, was gifted with every attractive accomplishment. Her house was the resort of wit and elegance, and it was in her society that the unfortunate Frenchman found a refuge from all those tender remembrances which, in early life, had been impressed indelibly upon his heart. His letter breathes the deepest, and most sincere affliction; and is a specimen of that feeling mode of writing to which every bosom is made to respond. In the 24th letter St. Evremond strikes a melancholy chord:

more elastick kind; and, like the nymphs of your country, they will dance till they die."

das displays feeling and judgment. The criticisms on Milton's LyciThis poem, the most beautiful perhaps of the pastoral kind which our language furnishes, Dr. Johnson speaks of with coldness and disrespect. But Johnson was insensible to the exquisite touches of pathos and tenderness. Waller bestows cold and reluctant praise on Paradise Lost, but speaks feelingly of Lycidas. The truth is, not only Paradise Milton were undervalued in WalLost, but all the minor poems of ler's time. Nor is it supposed that age which delighted in the quaint and affected conceits of Cowley could have relished the force and simple charms of Lycidas. No readmajesty of Paradise Lost, or the

er that is fond of the humorous can pass over the 33d and 40th letters. The 37th, is a letter of St. Evremond to the dutchess of Mazarine, dissuading her from a monastick life, to which are added some stanzas on the same subject. The last letter contains some sprightly remarks on monastick institutions. We do not assent to the applause given to Hen

In the 26th letter, Waller suggests his intention of relinquishing the pursuits of poetry; and in the concluding part writes after the following manner to his friend:

"It is not many years since I attempt, ed some poems on divine subjects, thinking those most suited to my age and condition. But I cannot boast of success, not even of satisfaction in those performances, They may be pleasing to devout minds; but there is something wanting. It is the vis ingenii, the vigour of imagination and expression that has failed. You will consider these frank acknowledgments as an unanswerable apology for the silence of what you call my muses. Yours are of a

ledge the beneficial effects resulting from the abolition of monasteries in England, we cannot help detesting the tyrant who laid a rapacious hand on the property of others, and who, alike insensible to the pleadings of justice and humanity, reduced a useful and unoffending body of men from affluence to beggary. That St. Evremond was not an open and avowed infidel, we readily admit. He did not, like Voltaire, preach the dogmas of the anti-christian system, with the vehemence of a sectary. He was a philosopher and his mind was equally free from the intolerance of a bigot, or the unholy zeal of an infidel; but he was certainly at bottom, a free thinker. No blame, therefore, can attach to Dr. Langhorne, for