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 boasting its influence; she was not to be subdued by the powers of verse, but rejected his addresses, it is said, with disdain, and drove him away to solace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newberry in the king's cause 2; and, in her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, asked him when he would again write such verses upon her; 'When you are as young, Madam,' said he, 'and as handsome, as you were then 3.' 11 In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, 12 among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature; but known so little to his advantage, that they who read his character will not much condemn Sacharissa that she did not descend from her rank to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit. The Lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon qualifi- 13 cations, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to the scholars and statesmen, and undoubtedly many beauties of that time, however they might receive his love, were proud of his praises. 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 preserved in families more may be discovered. * 'Sacharissa's beauty's wine, Which to madness doth incline; 'Here fell the Earl of Sunderland; a lord of great fortune, tender years (being not above three and twenty years of age), and an early judgment; who, having no command in the army, attended upon the King's person under the obligation of honour; and putting himself that day in the King's troop a volunteer, before they came to charge, was taken away by a common bullet.' Clarendon's Hist. iv. 239. His only son was the shameless minister of Charles II and James II, through whom the Dukes of Marlborough and Earls Spencer are descended from Waller's Sacharissa. 3 'She asked him in raillery," When, Mr. Waller, will you write such fine verses upon me again?" "Oh, Madame," said he, "when your Ladyship is as young again."' Life, p. 117. For a copy of verses to her ‘among the State Papers in the Record Office' see N. & 2.4 S. ii. 1. 4 Post, WALLER, 90. 5 Fenton's Waller: Observations, p. 73. She, with Lady Daubigny post, WALLER, 57), was charged with complicity in Waller's plot. "I do not mean,' she said boldly to the Committee of Safety, "to give an From the verses 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 hè visited the Bermudas; but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himself with forming an imaginary scene than that so important an incident, as a visit to America, should have been left floating in conjectural probability 1. From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year he wrote his pieces on the Reduction of Sallee2; on the Reparation of St. Paul's3; to the King on his Navy'; the panegyrick on the Queen Mother; the two poems to the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the time cannot be discovered. When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa he looked round 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 this wife was won by his poetry; nor is any thing 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 account to such fellows as you are." The poem is entitled The Battel Flies for relief unto the raging main.' flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze. Of this wife his biographers have recorded that she gave him 17 five sons and eight daughters. During the long interval of parliament he is represented as 18 living among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of speech and conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was however considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was therefore supposed by the courtiers not to favour them. When the parliament was called in 1640 it appeared that 19 Waller's political character had not been mistaken. The King's demand of a supply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection and discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical complaints of imaginary grievances. 'They,' says he, 'who think themselves already undone can never apprehend themselves in danger, and they who [that] have nothing left can never give freely. Political truth is equally in danger from the praises of courtiers and the exclamations of patriots. He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time 20 of a favourable audience. His topick is such as will always serve its purpose; an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment: and he exhorts the Commons 'carefully to provide for their protection against Pulpit Law".' It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has in 21 this speech quoted Hooker in one passage3, and in another has copied him, without quoting*. 'Religion,' says Waller, 'ought to be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but that which is first in dignity is not always to precede in order of time, for well-being supposes a being; and the first impediment which men naturally endeavour to remove, is the want of those things without which they cannot subsist. God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title to the rest of the creatures before he appointed a law to observe.' 'God first assigned Adam,' says Hooker, 'maintenance of life, 22 and then appointed him a law to observe.-True it is that the 'Fenton's Waller, p. 258; Parl. Hist. ii. 556. 'Since they are so ready to let loose the consciences of their Kings, we are the more carefully to provide for our protection against this pulpit- Ib. p. 263. 23 24 kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but inasmuch as a righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live virtuously it is impossible, except we live; therefore the first impediment which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and want of things without which we cannot live? The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances ought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to law and reason'; nor was Waller, if his biographer may be credited3, such an enemy to the King as not to wish his distresses lightened, for he relates 'That the King sent particularly to Waller, to second his demand of some subsidies to pay off the army; and Sir Henry Vane objecting against first voting a supply, because the King would not accept unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the household, to save his master from the effects of so bold a falsity; "for," he said, "I am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend to know the King's mind": but Sir Thomas durst not contradict the secretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr. Waller that his father's cowardice ruined the King.' In the Long Parliament which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3, 16405, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and was considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty and acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship money; and his speech shews that he did not disappoint their expectations. He was probably the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had been particularly engaged in the dispute, and by a sentence which seems generally to be thought unconstitutional particularly injured'. Eccl. Polity, Book i. sect. 10. * Sir Henry Vane was Secretary of 5 Post, WALLER, 65. 'For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at His pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.' MACAULAY, History, iii. 413. He sat for St. Ives, Cornwall. Parl. Hist. ii. 604. ' Waller charged Crawley with 'a crime peculiar to himself and of great malignity.' 'Adding despair to our misery he tells us from the Bench that ship-money was a right so inherent in the Crown that it He was not however a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their 25 opinions. When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to be abolished, was debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, so reasonably, and so firmly that it is not without great injury to his name that his speech, which was as follows, has been hitherto omitted in his works": 'There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation hath suf- 26 fered from the present Bishops hath produced these complaints, and the apprehensions men have of suffering the like in time to come make so many desire the taking away of Episcopacy; but I conceive it is possible that we may not now take a right measure of the minds of the people by their petitions, for when they subscribed them the Bishops were armed with a dangerous commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and the like; but now we have disarmed them of that power. These petitioners lately did look upon Episcopacy as a beast armed with horns and claws, but now that we have cut and pared them (and may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into narrower bounds) it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they be still in passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use and antiquity thereof, and not to comply further with a general desire than may stand with a general good. We have already shewed that episcopacy and the evils thereof 27 are mingled like water and oil, we have also in part severed them; but I believe you will find that our laws and the present government of the church are mingled like wine and water, so inseparable that the abrogation of at least a hundred of our laws is desired in these petitions. I have often heard a noble answer of the Lords commended in this house to a proposition of like nature, but of less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but this, Nolumus mutare Leges Anglia: it was the bishops who so answered then3; and it would become the dignity would not be in the power of an Act of Parliament to take it away.' Fenton's Waller, pp. 268, 273, and Observations, p. 165. This speech was made on July 6, 1641. Parl. Hist. ii. 869. 20,000 copies of it were sold in one day.' Life, p. 21. 'Crawley was restrained from going circuit, Aug. 5. Probably he joined the king.' Dict. Nat. Biog. The debate began on Feb. 8, 1641. Slight as the difference might be between those who took opposite sides on that day, their parting gave the colour to English political life which has distinguished it ever since, and which has distinguished every free government which has followed in the steps of our forefathers.' GARDINER, Hist. of Eng. ix. 281. 2 This speech has been retrieved from a paper printed at that time by the writers of the Parliamentary History. JOHNSON. Johnson had found this History[The Parliamentary or Constitutional History of England, . . . to 1660, 24 vols. 1751-62] in the library at Streatham. Boswell's Johnson, iv. 36 n. [The speech is in vol. ix. p. 347, but its delivery is assigned to June 11, 1641.] 3 This sentence should, I think, run 'It was the bishops who were so answered then.' Blackstone |