Would I esteem this mercenary band,

As those far more malignant powers that stand,
Arm'd with dissuasions, to obstruct the way
Fancy directs; but let those souls obey
Their harsh commands, that stand in fear to shed
Repentant tears: I am resolved to tread

Those doubtful paths, through all the shades of fear
That now benights them. Love, with pity hear
Thy suppliant's prayer, and when my clouded eyes
Shall cease to weep, in smiles I'll sacrifice
To thee such offerings, that the utmost date
Of death's rough hands shall never violate.'

EDMUND WALLER.

EDMUND WALLER (1605-1687) was a courtly and amatory poet, inferior to Herrick or Suckling in natural feeling and poetic fancy, but superior to them in correctness and in general powers of versification. The poems of Waller have all the smooth

Edmund Waller.

ness and polish of modern verse, and hence a high, perhaps too high, rank has been claimed for him as one of the first refiners and improvers of poetical diction. One cause of Waller's refinement was doubtless his early and familiar intercourse with the court and nobility, and the light conversational nature of most of his productions. He wrote for the world of fashion and of taste-consigning

The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade. And he wrote in the same strain till he was upwards of fourscore! His life has more romance than his poetry. Waller was born at Coleshill, in Hertfordshire, and in his infancy was left heir to an estate of £3000 per annum. His mother was a sister of the celebrated John Hampden, but was a royalist in feeling, and used to lecture Cromwell for his share in the death of Charles I. Her son, the poet, was either a roundhead or a royalist, as the time served. He entered parliament and wrote his first poem when he was eighteen. At twenty-five, he married a rich heiress of London, who died the same year, and the poet immediately became a suitor of Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester. To this proud and peerless fair one Waller dedicated the better portion of his poetry, and the groves of Penshurst echoed to the praises of his Sacharissa. Lady Dorothea, however, was

inexorable, and bestowed her hand on the Earl of Sunderland. It is said that, meeting her long afterwards, when she was far advanced in years, the lady asked him when he would again write such verses upon her. When you are as young, madam, and as handsome, as you were then,' replied the ungallant poet. The incident affords a key to Waller's character. He was easy, witty, and accomplished, but cold and selfish; destitute alike of high principle and deep feeling. As a member of parliament, Waller distinguished himself on the popular side, and was chosen to conduct the prosecution against Judge Crawley for his opinion in favour of levying ship-money. His speech, on delivering the impeachment, was printed, and 20,000 copies of it sold in one day. Shortly afterwards, however, Waller joined in a plot to surprise the city militia, and let in the king's forces, for which he was tried and sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £10,000. His conduct on this occasion was mean and abject. At the expiration of his imprisonment, the poet went abroad, and resided, amidst much splendour and hospitality, in France. He returned during the protectorate, and when Cromwell died, Waller celebrated the event in one of his most vigorous and impressive poems. The image of the commonwealth, though reared by no common hands, soon fell to pieces under Richard Cromwell, and Waller was ready with a congratulatory address to Charles II. The royal offering was considered inferior to the panegyric on Cromwell, and the king himself (who admitted the poet to terms of courtly intimacy) is said to have told him of the disparity. 'Poets, sire,' replied the witty, self-possessed Waller, 'succeed better in fiction than in truth.' In the first parliament summoned by Charles, Waller sat for the town of Hastings, and he served for different places in all the parliaments of that reign. Bishop Burnet says he was the delight of the house of commons. At the accession of James II. in 1685, the venerable poet, then eighty years of age, was elected representative for a borough in Cornwall. The mad career of James in seeking to subvert the national church and constitution was foreseen by this wary and sagacious observer: 'he will be left,' said he, like a whale upon the strand.' Feeling his long-protracted life drawing to a close, Waller purchased a small property at Coleshill, saying, 'he would be glad to die like the stag, where he was roused.' The wish was not fulfilled; he died at Beaconsfield on the 21st of October 1687, and in the churchyard of that place (where also rest the ashes of Edmund Burke) a monument has been erected to his memory.

The first collection of Waller's poems was made by himself, and published in the year 1664. It went through numerous editions in his lifetime; and in 1690 a second collection was made of such pieces as he had produced in his latter years. In a poetical dedication to Lady Harley, prefixed to this edition, and written by Elijah Fenton, Waller is styled the

Maker and model of melodious verse. This eulogium seems to embody the opinion of Waller's contemporaries, and it was afterwards confirmed by Dryden and Pope, who had not sufficiently studied the excellent models of versification furnished by the old poets, and their rich poetical diction. The smoothness of his versification, his good sense, and uniform elegance, rendered him popular with critics as with the multitude; while his prominence as a public man, for so many years, would increase curiosity as to his works. Waller is now seldom read. The playfulness of his fancy, and the absence of any striking defects, are but poor substitutes for

genuine feeling and the language of nature. His poems are chiefly short and incidental, but he wrote a poem on Divine Love, in six cantos. Cowley had written his 'Davideis,' and recommended sacred subjects as adapted for poetry; but neither he nor Waller succeeded in this new and higher walk of

Waller's Tomb.

the muse. Such an employment of their talents was graceful and becoming in advanced life, but their fame must ever rest on their light, airy, and occasional poems, dictated by that gallantry, adulation, and play of fancy, which characterised the cavalier poets.

On Love.

Anger, in hasty words or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes;
And sorrow, too, finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief:
So ev'ry passion, but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move;
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disorder'd, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despis'd,
Where he endeavours to be priz'd.
For women (born to be controll'd)
Stoop to the forward and the bold;
Affect the haughty and the proud,
The gay, the frolic, and the loud.
Who first the gen'rous steed opprest,
Not kneeling did salute the beast;
But with high courage, life, and force,
Approaching, tam'd th' unruly horse.
Unwisely we the wiser East
Pity, supposing them opprest
With tyrants' force, whose law is will,
By which they govern, spoil, and kill;
Each nymph, but moderately fair,
Commands with no less rigour here.

Should some brave Turk, that walks among
His twenty lasses, bright and young,
Behold as many gallants here,
With modest guise and silent fear,
All to one female idol bend,
While her high pride does scarce descend
To mark their follies, he would swear
That these her guard of eunuchs were,
And that a more majestic queen,
Or humbler slaves, he had not seen.
All this with indignation spoke,
In vain I struggled with the yoke
Of mighty Love: that conqu'ring look,
When next beheld, like lightning strook
My blasted soul, and made me bow
Lower than those I pitied now.

So the tall stag, upon the brink
Of some smooth stream about to drink,
Surveying there his armed head,
With shame remembers that he fled
The scorned dogs, resolves to try
The combat next; but if their cry
Invades again his trembling ear,

He straight resumes his wonted care;
Leaves the untasted spring behind,
And, wing'd with fear, outflies the wind.

On a Girdle.

That which her slender waist confin'd
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
It was my heav'n's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer;
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move!
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair.
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

On the Marriage of the Dwarfs.
Design or chance makes others wive,
But Nature did this match contrive:
Eve might as well have Adam fled,
As she denied her little bed

To him, for whom Heav'n seem'd to frame
And measure out this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads those arrows fly
Of sad distrust and jealousy;
Secured in as high extreme,

As if the world held none but them.
To him the fairest nymphs do show

Like moving mountains topp'd with snow;
And ev'ry man a Polypheme

Does to his Galatea seem.

Ah! Chloris, that kind Nature thus
From all the world had sever'd us;
Creating for ourselves us two,
As Love has me for only you!

A Panegyric to the Lord Protector.
While with a strong and yet a gentle hand,
You bridle faction, and our hearts command,
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe,
Make us unite, and make us conquer too;

Let partial spirits still aloud complain,
Think themselves injur'd that they cannot reign,
And own no liberty, but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.
Above the waves, as Neptune show'd his face,
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race,
So has your Highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition tossing us repress'd.

Your drooping country, torn with civil hate,
Restor'd by you, is made a glorious state;
The seat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom.
The sea's our own; and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends as far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.
Heav'n, that hath plac'd this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and its states to awe,
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,
The greatest leader, and the greatest isle
Whether this portion of the world were rent
By the rude ocean from the continent,
Or thus created, it was sure design'd
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
Hither the oppressed shall henceforth resort,
Justice to crave, and succour at your court;
And then your Highness, not for our's alone,
But for the world's Protector shall be known.

*

Still as you rise, the state exalted too,
Finds no distemper while 'tis chang'd by you;
Chang'd like the world's great scene! when, without
noise,

The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we should read your story;
But living virtue, all achievements past,
Meets envy still to grapple with at last.
This Cæsar found; and that ungrateful age,
With losing him, went back to blood and rage;
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.
That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars
Gave a dim light to violence and wars;
To such a tempest as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.

If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword,
Which of the conquer'd world had made them lord,
What hope had ours, while yet their power was new,
To rule victorious armies, but by you?

You, that had taught them to subdue their foes,
Could order teach, and their high sp'rits compose;
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage.
So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that first took pain
To tame his youth approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.
As the vex'd world, to find repose, at last
Itself into Augustus' arms did cast;
So England now does, with like toil opprest,
Her weary head upon your bosom rest.
Then let the Muses, with such notes as these,
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace.
Your battles they hereafter shall indite,
And draw the image of our Mars in fight.

Above our neighbours our conceptions are; But faultless writing is the effect of care. Our lines reform'd, and not compos'd in haste, Polish'd like marble, would like marble last. But as the present, so the last age writ: In both we find like negligence and wit. Were we but less indulgent to our faults, And patience had to cultivate our thoughts, Our Muse would flourish, and a nobler rage Would honour this than did the Grecian stage.

[The British Navy.]

When Britain, looking with a just disdain
Upon this gilded majesty of Spain,
And knowing well that empire must decline
Whose chief support and sinews are of coin,
Our nation's solid virtue did oppose
To the rich troublers of the world's repose.

And now some months, encamping on the main,
Our naval army had besieged Spain:
They that the whole world's monarchy design'd,
Are to their ports by our bold fleet confin'd,
From whence our Red Cross they triumphant see,
Riding without a rival on the sea.

Others may use the ocean as their road, Only the English make it their abode, Whose ready sails with every wind can fly, And make a covenant with the inconstant sky: Our oaks secure, as if they there took root, We tread on billows with a steady foot.

At Penshurst.

While in this park I sing, the list'ning 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 heav'n!
Love's foe profess'd! why dost thou falsely feign
Thyself a Sidney? from which noble strain
He sprung, that could so far exalt the name
Of Love, and warm our nation with his flame;
That all we can of love or high desire,
Seems but the smoke of amorous Sidney's fire.
Nor call her mother who so well does prove
One breast may hold both chastity and love.
Never can she, that so exceeds the spring
In joy and bounty, be suppos'd to bring
One so destructive. To no human stock
We owe this fierce unkindness, but the rock;
That cloven rock produc'd thee, by whose side
Nature, to recompense the fatal pride

Of such stern beauty, plac'd those healing springs2
Which not more help than that destruction brings.
Thy heart no ruder than the rugged stone,

I might, like Orpheus, with my num'rous moan
Melt to compassion; now my trait'rous song
With thee conspires to do the singer wrong;
While thus I suffer not myself to lose
The memory of what augments my woes;
But with my own breath still foment the fire,
Which flames as high as fancy can aspire!

Of just Apollo, president of verse;
This last complaint the indulgent ears did pierce
Highly concerned that the Muse should bring
Damage to one whom he had taught to sing:

Thus he advis'd me: On yon aged tree

Hang up thy lute, and hie thee to the sea,
That there with wonders thy diverted mind
Some truce, at least, may with this passion find.'
Ah, cruel nymph! from whom her humble swain

Flies for relief unto the raging main,
And from the winds and tempests does expect
A milder fate than from her cold neglect !
Yet there he'll pray that the unkind may prove
Blest in her choice; and vows this endless love
Springs from no hope of what she can confer,

But from those gifts which Heav'n has heap'd on her.

The Bud.

Lately on yonder swelling bush,
Big with many a coming rose,
This early bud began to blush,
And did but half itself disclose;
I plucked it though no better grown,
And now you see how full 'tis blown.
Still, as I did the leaves inspire,
With such a purple light they shone,
As if they had been made of fire,
And spreading so would flame anon.
All that was meant by air or sun,

To the young flow'r my breath has done.

If our loose breath so much can do,
What may the same in forms of love,
Of purest love and music too,
When Flavia it aspires to move?
When that which lifeless buds persuades
To wax more soft, her youth invades ?

In heav'n itself thou sure wert dress'd

With that angel-like disguise;

Thus deluded, am I blest,

And see my joy with closed eyes.

But, ah! this image is too kind

To be other than a dream;

Cruel Sacharissa's mind

Ne'er put on that sweet extreme.

Fair dream! if thou intend'st me grace,

Change that heavenly face of thine;

Paint despis'd love in thy face,

And make it t' appear like mine.

Pale, wan, and meagre, let it look,
With a pity-moving shape,
Such as wander by the brook

Of Lethe, or from graves escape.

Then to that matchless nymph appear,
In whose shape thou shinest so;
Softly in her sleeping ear

With humble words express my wo.

Perhaps from greatness, state, and pride,
Thus surprised, she may fall;
Sleep does disproportion hide,

And, death resembling, equals all.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retir'd;
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desir'd,

And not blush so to be admir'd.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Old Age and Death.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

1608. His father was of an ancient Catholic family, but having embraced the Protestant faith, he was disinherited, and had recourse, as a means of support, to the profession of a scrivener-one who draws legal contracts, and places money at interest. The firmness and the sufferings of the father for conscience' sake, tinctured the early feelings and sentiments of the son, who was a stern unbending champion of religious freedom. The paternal example may also have had some effect on the poet's taste and accomplishments. The elder Milton was distinguished as a musical composer, and the son was well skilled in the same soothing and delightful art. The variety and harmony of his versification may no doubt be partly traced to the same source. Coleridge styles Milton a musical, not a picturesque, poet. The saying, however, is more pointed than correct. In the most musical passages of Milton (as the lyrics in "Comus'), the pictures presented to the mind are as distinct and vivid as the paintings of Titian or

Raphael. Milton was educated with great care. At fifteen, he was sent (even then an accomplished scholar) to St Paul's school, London, and two years afterwards to Christ's college, Cambridge. He was a severe student, of a nice and haughty temper, and jealous of constraint or control. He complained that the fields around Cambridge had no soft shades to attract the muse, as Robert Hall, a century and a half afterwards, attributed his first attack of insanity to the flatness of the scenery, and the want of woods in that part of England! Milton was designed for the church, but he preferred a 'blameless silence' to what he considered servitude and forswearing.' At this time, in his twenty-first year, he had written his grand Hymn on the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a new and great light was about to rise on English poetry. In 1632 he retired from the university, having taken his degree of M.A., and went to the house of his father, who had relinquished business, and purchased a small property at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Here he lived five years, studying classical literature, and here he wrote his Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. The Arcades' formed part of a masque, presented to the Countess Dowager of Derby, at Harefield, near Horton, by some noble persons of her family. Comus,' also a masque, was presented at Ludlow castle in 1634, before the Earl

of Bridgewater, then president of Wales. This drama was founded on an actual occurrence. The Earl of Bridgewater then resided at Ludlow castle; his sons, Lord Brackley and Mr Egerton, and Lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing through Haywood forest in Herefordshire, on their way to Ludlow, were benighted, and the lady was for a short time lost. This accident being related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the request of his friend Henry Lawes, the musician (who taught music in the family), wrote the masque.

Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night, 1634, the two brothers, the young lady,' and Lawes himself, bearing each a part in the representation. Comus' is better entitled to the appellation of a moral masque than any by Jonson, Ford, or Massinger. It is a pure dream of Elysium. The reader is transported, as in Shakspeare's Tempest,' to scenes of fairy enchantment, but no grossness mingles with the poet's creations, and his muse is ever ready to moralise the song' with strains of solemn imagery and lofty sentiment. Comus' was first published in 1637, not by its author, but by Henry Lawes, who, in a dedication to Lord Bridgewater, says, although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction.' Lycidas' was also published in the same year. This exquisite poem is a monody on a college companion of Milton's, Edward King, who perished by shipwreck on his passage from Chester to Ireland. Milton's descriptive poems, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, are generally referred to the same happy period of his life; but from the cast of the imagery, we suspect they were sketched in at college, when he walked the studious cloisters pale,' amidst 'storied windows,' and 'pealing anthems.' And, indeed, there is a tradition that the scenery depicted in L'Allegro' is that around a country college retirement of the poet, at Forest Hill, about three miles from Oxford. In 1638 the poet left the paternal roof, and travelled for fifteen months in France and Italy, returning homewards by the Leman lake' to Geneva and Paris. His society was courted by the choicest Italian wits,' and he visited Galileo, then a prisoner of the Inquisition. The statuesque grace and beauty of some of Milton's poetical creations (the figures of Adam and Eve, the angel Raphael, and parts of Paradise Regained) were probably suggested by his study of the works of art in Florence and Rome. The poet had been with difficulty restrained from testifying against popery within the verge of the Vatican; and on his return to his native country, he engaged in controversy against the prelates and the royalists, and vindicated, with characteristic ardour, the utmost freedom of thought and expression. His prose works are noticed in another part of this volume. In 1643 Milton went to the country, and married Mary, the daughter of Richard Powell, a high cavalier of Oxfordshire, to whom the poet was probably known, as Mr Powell had, many years before, borrowed £500 from his father. He brought his wife to London, but in the short period of a month, the studious habits and philosophical seclusion of the republican poet proved so distasteful to the cavalier's fair daughter, that she left his house on a visit to her parents, and refused to return. Milton resolved to repudiate her, and published some treatises on divorce, in which he argues that the law of Moses, which allowed of divorcement for uncleanness, was not adultery only, but uncleanness of the mind as well as the body. This dangerous doctrine he maintained through life; but the year after her desertion (when the poet was practically enforcing his opinions by soliciting the hand of another lady), his erring and repentant wife fell on her knees before him, 'submissive in distress,' and Milton, like his own Adam, was fondly overcome with female charm.' He also behaved with great generosity to her parents when the further progress of the civil war involved them in ruin. In 1649 Milton was, unsolicited, appointed foreign or Latin secretary to the council of state. His salary was about £300 per annum, which was afterwards reduced one half,