EDMUND WALLER.

EDMUND WALLER, the celebrated poet, was born at Coleshill in Hertfordshire, on the 3rd of March, 1605. He was the son of Robert Waller, Esq., a gentleman of Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, who died during Edmund's infancy, leaving him a yearly income of 35007. per annum, which may be fairly reckoned as equal to four times that amount at the present day.

Waller's mother placed him at Eton, where he must have diligently availed himself of the aid of his instructors in Greek and Roman literature, as is testified by the extensive and accurate scholarship which his earliest works display, and by the classic elegance of taste that generally pervades his writings. On leaving necessary rudiments of war, that they may know to fall on with discretion, and retreat with care; how to maintain their order, and make good their ground.

"Also I do expect that all those who have voluntarily engaged themselves in this service, should answer my expectation in the performance of these ensuing articles : "1. That you willingly and chearfully obey such as, by your own election, you have made commanders over you.

"2. That you take special care to keep your arms at all times fit for service, that upon all occasions you may be ready, when the signal shall be given, by the sound of drum or trumpet, to repair to your colours; and so to march upon any service, where and when occasion shall require.

"3. That you bear yourselves like soldiers, without doing any spoil to the inhabitants of the country: so doing you shall gain love and friendship, where otherwise, you will be hated and complained of; and I, that should protect you, shall be forced to punish you according to the severity of law.

❝4. That you accept and rest satisfied with such quarters as shall fall to your lot, or be appointed you by your Quarter-master.

"5. That you shall, if appointed for centries or perdues, faithfully discharge that duty; for, upon fail hereof, you are sure to undergo a very severe censure.

"6. You shall forbear to profane the Sabbath, either by being drunk, or by unlawful games; for whosoever shall be found faulty must not expect to pass unpunished.

"7. Whosoever shall be known to neglect the feeding of his horse with necessary provender, to the end that his horse be disabled or unfit for service; the party, for the said default, shall suffer a month's imprisonment, and afterwards be cashiered as unworthy the name of a soldier.

"8. That no trooper, or other of our soldiers, shall suffer his paddee to feed his horse in the corn, or to steal men's hay; but shall pay every man for hay 6d. day and night, and for oats 28. the bushel. And lastly,

"9. That you avoid cruelty; for it is my desire rather to save the lives of thousands than to kill one, so that it may be done without prejudice.

"These things faithfully performed, and the justice of our cause truly considered, let us advance with a religious courage, and willingly adventure our lives in the defence of the King and Parliament."

Eton, Waller was placed at King's College; this must have been as a Fellow Commoner, as his name does not appear in the Registrum Regale.

At the early age of eighteen, Waller was a statesman, a courtier, and a poet. The House of Commons in those days was not so strict as it afterwards became in excluding minors from its walls; and Waller, as his Epitaph by Rymer expresses it, "Nondum octodecennalis inter ardua regni tractantes sedem habuit, a burgo de Agmondesham missus." Our young senator was well received at the Court of James the First, which he assiduously frequented; and the first published specimen of his poetical powers was a copy of congratulatory verses on Prince Charles's escape from shipwreck at St. Andero on his return from Spain. Johnson says of this piece, that it justifies the observation made by one of Waller's editors, that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be obsolete. The rhythm and elegance of expression which are displayed in Waller's earliest poems, are not only equal to those of his more mature productions, but they are remarkable in themselves; and he is certainly the first writer in whose hands our heroic couplet assumed any smoothness and metrical harmony. Waller was an attentive reader of Fairfax's translation of Tasso (in the same metre as the original), and he professed himself indebted to this model for the smoothness of his own numbers. The practice of Latin versification at Eton must also have contributed to give Waller his distinguishing excellence in rhythm. I know no instance of a poet showing elegance in Latin versification, but betraying ruggedness when he uses his own language. Petrarch and the other great Italian scholars, Milton and Gray among our own, are splendid examples to the contrary.

Waller's residences at King's cannot have been very long and frequent, as, besides his senatorial functions and his attendances at Court, we find that he had become the husband of a great city heiress, the father of two children, and was a widower by the time he was five-and-twenty. He must, however, have sometimes assumed his station at Cambridge as a member of the university, as a Latin epigram signed Ed. Waller, Armiger, Coll. Regal. is preserved in "Rex Redux," the collection of Cambridge verses on the return of Charles the First from Scotland, after his coronation there in 1633. Waller's first marriage had largely increased his previously

ample wealth, and he sought to advance himself in rank by winning a second wife from among the high-born beauties of the day. His poetical courtships of Lady Dorothea Sidney, whom he immortalised by the name of Sacharissa, and of Lady Sophia Murray, whom he sang of as his Amoret, were long, melodious and unsuccessful. But though he lost the ladies, he won what probably he loved better than either of them, universal celebrity: and as he himself elegantly expressed it, like Apollo in vain pursuit of Daphne,

"He catched at love, and filled his arms with bays."

Johnson has described Waller's courtships with peculiar sarcasm, and thus narrates the circumstances of his second marriage.

"When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked around him for an easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or Breaux. The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has not been discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is anything told of her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtless praised some whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to domestick happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze."

Waller was a second time returned to Parliament for Agmondesham in 1640, and he again represented that borough in the Long Parliament. Waller was Hampden's nephew, and he was also connected, though more distantly, with the family of Cromwell. He joined these and other popular leaders in insisting that a redress of grievances ought to precede a vote of supply; and he soon signalised himself as one of the best orators on the opposition side of the house. So highly did the chiefs of his party esteem his abilities, that he was put forward by them as the manager of the prosecution of Mr. Justice Crawley, for the part which that judge had taken on the Ship-money question. Waller's speech on this occasion must have been one of no ordinary power and skill, inasmuch as 20,000 copies of it are said to have been sold in a single day.

Waller was, however, far from going all the lengths to which the fierce zealots of his party were eager to proceed. A speech of his on

the question of the abolition of Episcopacy has been preserved, and is quoted by Johnson. Johnson truly says that he spoke against the innovation coolly, reasonably, and firmly. Waller opposed several other of the extreme measures which the Parliamentary majority voted. And, though he remained in London after the war broke out, and continued to sit in the House of Commons at Westminster, be is supposed to have done so by the King's secret permission. He was one of the Parliamentary Commissioners sent to Oxford to negotiate with the King, who showed great favour and attention to him; and Waller, being now completely won over to the royal side, on his return to London tried to organise a scheme for an armed rising in the city in the King's behalf. This project, which is known as Waller's plot, proved an utter failure. Some intelligence of it was gained by Pym; and Waller, on being apprehended, betrayed his confederates' lives and begged for his own, with equal perfidy and cowardice. Clarendon, whom other events made a personal enemy to Waller, has exerted all his power in branding this infamous part of Waller's career. Johnson cites these censures of the noble historian's, and adds some weighty ones of his own. But he also quotes the milder comment of another biographer, who bids us "not to condemn Waller with untempered severity, because he was not a prodigy which the world has seldom seen, because his character included not the poet, the orator and the hero."

Waller was expelled from the House of Commons, and tried and condemned by a court-martial, for his participation in this affair. But Lord Essex reprieved him, and after a year's imprisonment his life was granted him on his paying a fine of £10,000. After which the ruling party in the Parliament "permitted him to recollect himself in another country."

Waller went to France, where he remained some years in exile. He lived at first in great splendour; but at length his remittances from England began to fail. He was obliged to sell his wife's jewels and on being reduced, as he expressed it, to the rump-jewel, he employed the interest of his brother-in-law, Colonel Scroop, with Cromwell to obtain leave to return to England. This was readily granted; and Waller, whose powers of making his society agreeable to all men of all kinds, must have been very remarkable, soon became a personal favourite with the Protector.

"Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently versed in

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ancient history; and when any of his enthusiastick friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times: but when he returned, he would say, 'Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way :' and resumed the common style of conversation.

"He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous panegyrick which has been always considered as the first of his poetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topicks is very judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without enquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no mention of the rebel or the regicide. All the former part of his hero's life is veiled with shades; and nothing is brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England's honour, and the enlarger of her dominion."

This from Johnson is no slight praise. Johnson also remarks that

"The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been dictated by real veneration for his memory. Dryden and Sprat wrote on the same occasion; but they were young men, struggling into notice, and hoping for some favour from the ruling party. Waller had little to expect: he had received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and was not likely to ask anything from those who should succeed him."

He says of the poem itself

"The Panegyric 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."

Hallam observes on this that " It may not be the opinion of all, that Cromwell's actions were of that obscure and pitiful character which the majesty of song rejects." I cannot, however, agree with this last great critic that " Waller's deficiency in poetical vigour will surely be traced in this composition:" that "if he rarely sinks, he never rises very high." Surely such a censure does not apply to the following stanza, in which he describes how Cromwell, as he raised himself above all his countrymen, raised his country above all other nations.