Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the fafety of Hampden's fon.

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 connection with Hampden, for whofe fake he profecuted Crawley with great bitterness: and the invective which he pronounced on that occafion was so popular, that twenty thoufand copies are faid by his biographer to have been fold in one day.

It is confeffed that his faults ftill left him many friends, at least many companions. His convivial power of pleafing is univerfally acknowledged; but thofe who converfed with him intimately, found him not only pamsonate, efpecially in his old age, but refentful; so that the interpofition of friends was fometimes neceffary.

His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the trans

I

lation

lation of Corneille's Pompey; and is faid to have added his help to that of Cowley in the original draught of the Rehearfal. 1

The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree little defs than criminal, was either not conftant or not fuccefsful; for, having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred a year in the time of James the First, and augmented it at leaft 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 poffeffed.

Of this diminution, part was the confequence of the gifts which he was forced to fcatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the detection of his plot; and if his eftate, as is related in his Life, was fequeftered, he had probably contracted debts when he lived in exile; for we are told that at Paris he lived in fplendor, and was the only Englifhman, except the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table.

His unlucky plot compelled him to fell a thousand a year; of the waste of the rest there is no account, except that he is confeffed by his biographer to have been a bad œconomift. He feems to have deviated from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a fquanderer in his laft.

Of his courfe of ftudies, or choice of books, nothing is known more than that he professed himfelf unable to read Chapman's tranflation 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 fome motive to virtue."

THE

THE characters, by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings, are fpritelinefs and dignity; in his fmaller pieces, he endeavours to be gay; in the larger, to be great. Of his airy and light productions, the chief fource is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence, which has defcended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly occasional, and his addreffes perfonal, he was not fo liberally supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more easily found than maguanimity.

The delicacy, which he cultivated, reftrains him to a certain nicety and caution, even when he writes upon the flightest matter. He has therefore in his whole volume nothing burlefque, and feldom any thing lu dicrous or familiar. He feems always to do his beft; though his fubjects are often unworthy of his care. It is not eafy to think without fome contempt on an author, who is growing illuftrious in his own opinion by verfes, at one time, "To a Lady, who can VOL. I. Cc

"do

"do any thing, but fleep, when the pleases." At another, "To a Lady, who can fleep, "when the pleases." Now, "To a Lady, "on her paffing through a crowd of people." Then, "On a braid of divers colours woven કંદ by four fair Ladies :" "On a tree cut in

65 paper

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or, "To a Lady, from whom "he received the copy of verses on the paper-tree, which for many years had been miffing."

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Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We ftill read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleafes himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the fubject. But compofitions merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in time for fomething useful: they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of fhort duration; or they are bloffoms to be valued only as they foretell fruits..

Among Waller's little poems are fome, which their excellency ought to fecure from oblivion; as, To Amret, comparing the different modes of regard with which he

looks