"what at fourfcore." His verfification was, in his firft effay, fuch as it appears in his laft performance. By the perufal of Fairfix's tranflation of Taffo, to which, as * Dryden relates, he confeffed himfelf indebted for the fmoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of obfervation, he had already formed fuch a fyftem of metrical harmony as he never afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham, was inherited by Waller.

The next poem, of which the fubject feems to fix the time, is fuppofed by Mr. Fenton to be the Addrefs to the Queen, which he confiders as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year. He is apparently miftaken; for the mention of the nation's obligations to her frequent pregnancy, proves that it was written when she had brought many children. We have therefore no date of any other poetical production be

fore that which the murder of the Duke of

Preface to his Fables.

Buck

Buckingham occafioned: the fteadiness with which the King received the news in the chapel, deferved indeed to be refcued from oblivion.

Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates, could have been the fudden effufion of fancy. In the verses on the Prince's efcape, the prediction of his marriage with the princefs of France, must have been written after the event; in the other, the promises of the King's kindness to the defcendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by its effects, fhew that time was taken for revifion and improvement. It is not known that they were published till they appeared long afterwards with other poems.

Waller was not one of thofe idolaters of praise who.cultivate their minds at the expence of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he took care early to grow richer by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heirefs in the city, whom the interest of the court was employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a fon, who died

young,

and a

daughter,

daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer of Oxfordshire, fhe died in childbed, and left him a widower of about five and twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himfelf with another marriage.

Being too young to refift beauty, and probably too vain to think himself resistible, hè fixed his heart, perhaps half fondly and half ambitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sachariffa is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latin appellation of sugar, and implies, if it means any thing, a fpiritless mildnefs, and dull good-nature, fuch as excites rather tenderness than efteem, and fuch as, though always treated with kindness, is never honoured or admired..

Yet he describes Sachariffa as a fublime predominating beauty, of lofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in vain, to break, and whose presence is wine that inflames to madness.

His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of boafting its influence; she was not to be fubdued by the powers of verfe, but rejected his addreffes, it is faid, with difdain, and drove him away to folace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newberry in the king's cause; and, in her old age, meeting fomewhere with Waller, afked him, when he would again write fuch verfes upon her; "When you are as young, Madam,” said he, "and as handfome, as you were then."

In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature; but known fo little to his ad vantage, that they who read his character will not much condemn Sachariffa, that she did not defcend from her rank to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit.

The Lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him

to

to the scholars and ftatefmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of that time, however they might receive his love, were proud of his praifes. Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, cannot now be known. Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. Perhaps by traditions preferved in families more may be difcovered.

From the verfes written at Penshurst, it has been collected that he diverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his biographers, from his poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited the Bermudas; but it feems much more likely that he should amufe himself with forming an imaginary fcene, than that fo important an incident, as a vifit to America, fhould have been left floating in conjectural probability.

From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieces on the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. Paul's; to the King on his Navy; the panegyrick on the Queen Mother; the two poems to the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps

others,