-

more so than

of his Works, writes, "He was the maker and model of melodious verse"; and in another notice of him that we have seen, it is said that "as a poet he is entitled to the highest praise, that he may be called the parent of English verse, and the first who showed us that our language had beauty and numbers." The writer of this last criticism could not have been very well versed in English literature. Waller was indeed smooth and melodious in his numbers, the generality of the poets of his day, who in the art of modulation had retrograded from the point of advancement attained by the Elizabethan poets; but to call him the parent of English verse, and the first who showed us that our language had beauty and numbers, is simply absurd. The only manner in which this excessive laudation can be accounted for, is by the fact that these writers were his contemporaries, and Waller's personal fascinations must have influenced their judgments; for even Lord Clarendon, who speaks so strongly in condemnation of Waller's character as a man, says that as a poet "he surprised the town, as though a tenth Muse had been newly born to cherish drooping Poetry."

Waller was essentially a court poet, and no man ever paid a compliment in verse more elegantly than he. He was not a voluminous writer. All his verses are contained in the small volume now before us. His songs and addresses to his inamoratas are certainly very sweet, and his language is always pure and carefully chosen. Pope thought so highly of it, that, in planning a dictionary that should be an authority for style, he selected Waller as one of the best examples of poetical diction. His love-poems are delicate and refined, but there does not seem to be much real emotion in them. His Muse is a pretty and graceful creature; but though she delights the eye she seldom interests the heart. As a specimen of the grace with which Waller wrote, we will quote a little song that is in his very best manner, and is certainly extremely pleasing.

“Go, lovely rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

"Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

"Small is the worth

Of Beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

"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."

In most of Waller's poems to women there is an excess of praise, and a stereotyped style of flattery that must have made the persons addressed doubtful of his sincerity. He attributes nearly the same charms to every woman he eulogizes. It makes no difference whether it is the Queen, the Duchess of York, Lady Dorothea Sidney, or any other of the numberless other fair ones to whom he wrote. Robert Bell says:

"The fact that he could transfer his sympathies with such facility from one lady to another, and include at nearly the same moment so many in his comprehensive litany, materially diminishes the confidence we might otherwise be disposed to place in the sincerity of his devotion to Lady Sidney. A variety of inspirations may be necessary to supply the demands of a poetical temperament, but it may be reasonably doubted whether he was ever moved by a true passion, who professes to have been moved by it frequently. Impressions that succeed each other so rapidly may occupy the fancy of a poet, but can scarcely be supposed to reach his heart."

As an illustration of our remark that Waller paid a compliment in verse quite elegantly, we quote two stanzas of a short piece to a lady, on her singing a song of his own composing. This is but one of many.

"Chloris, yourself you so excel,

When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought,
That, like a spirit, with this spell

Of my own teaching I am caught.

"That eagle's fate and mine are one,

Which on the shaft that made him die
Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high."

The figure of an eagle killed by a dart feathered from his own wing is very fine. It has since been used by Lord Byron, in his lines upon Henry Kirke White. Perhaps both he and Waller took it from "The Myrmidons" of Eschylus, where it is to be found.

From the last verses that Waller ever composed we will make a short extract. They were written upon the Divine Poems he had just completed, and are particularly interesting from the fact that he was then more than eighty-two years of age and felt himself dying, and, as he said, "for age he could neither read nor write." They were dictated to his daughter Margaret.

"The seas are quiet when the wind gives o'er:

So calm are we when passions are no more!
For then we know how vain it is to boast

Of fleeting things so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness that Age descries.

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
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."

This was the flashing up of the candle in the socket before. going finally out.

The passages of merit in Waller's writings that elevate him from "the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease," prove that he had the intellect to be a far greater poet than he was, but he had not the heart. He was a brilliant wit, an elegant verse-writer, but he was as destitute of deep feeling as he was of high principle. It was only when trembling on the borders of the grave that he manifested anything like a noble and generous emotion. It has been beautifully said by the poet Campbell, that

"To live in hearts we leave behind

Is not to die";

never held a place in Wal

but this was not the creed of Waller. To be applauded while he lived was the extent of his ambition, and he cared not for the opinion posterity might entertain either of him or of his verses. Gifted as he was, he might have "bought golden opinions from all sorts of people," and have made his name loved and honored in his own and all succeeding generations; but the desire to have his memory kept ever green in the hearts of those who came after him, and his name ever spoken in accents of love and reverence, which, next to the aspiration for an immortal crown, is the purest and holiest ambition that can possess the soul of man, ler's soul. Had he been simply a clever man, the limit of whose gift of song was a prettily turned string of verses immortalizing a glove or a girdle, a smile or a sigh, a fan or a feather, he would not be amenable to our censure; but the passages in his writings which prove that he had been touched with Promethean fire induce us to exclaim, "How much this man might have done for the interests of his kind!" God gave him a command over the lyre, and he should have swept the strings to nobler ends and uses. We do not complain that his subjects are unworthy. Subjects are not material. There is instruction to be drawn from the most trivial objects that surround us, and the master poet can make his theme, whatever it may be, the vehicle of an ennobling sentiment or an instructive moral. It matters little what the text is, so that the commentary be fructifying. But Waller misused the talent that God had given him. There is not in his poetry a single strain which betokens sympathy with suffering humanity. He has made no effort to rouse the despairing, to soothe the afflicted, to excite to heroic deeds, to nerve the heart for the hour of trial and of sorrow, to raise the soul of his fellowman above the frowns of fortune, or to create a single sublime emotion in the heart. To do these things is the lofty mission of the poet. To Waller was granted the divine power to accomplish such precious ends, and he failed of them. He was unfaithful to the trust reposed in him, and, with full and brilliant capacity, fell immeasurably below the high office of the bard.

ART. V. Memoirs, Letters, and Speeches of ANTHONY ASH-. LEY COOPER, first EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, Lord Chancellor, with other Papers illustrating his Life. From his Birth to the Restoration. Edited by WILLIAM DOUGAL CHRISTIE, Esq., her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Brazil. London: John Murray. 1859. 8vo. pp. lxii. and 224.

WHILE Lord Shaftesbury was a prisoner in the Tower, on a charge of high treason, his character was drawn by Dryden with all the bitterness of invective which partisan malice and theological rancor can inspire. The sketch had, however, a sharpness of outline and a brilliancy of coloring which have preserved it from the usual fate of party libels; and the general fidelity of its portraiture has been recognized by subsequent writers. Indeed, in our own time, and not many years ago, a much greater man than Dryden, the late Lord Macaulay, drew a scarcely less memorable portrait of the false Achitophel, describing him in a few vigorous touches as surpassing all his contemporaries, except Halifax, in "talents, address, and influence," while "his life was such that every part of it reflects infamy on every other." But occasionally some intrepid biographer has sought to rebuild Shaftesbury's shattered reputation, and to present him to other hero-worshippers, if not as a fit object for admiration, yet as one whose character was not quite so black as it has been commonly represented. Such is avowedly the design of Mr. Christie. He had early formed the purpose of writing a new Life of Shaftesbury, and had made some progress in the collection of materials, when the present Earl gave him access to the family papers at St. Giles, with permission to make use of them in any way which he might think desirable. He does not appear to have found there anything of importance, though his collection comprises some interesting papers which have been closely guarded for several generations. A portion of these documents are printed in the volume before us, and in his Preface Mr. Christie expresses a hope that he may be able to publish the remainder at VOL. XCI. NO. 189. 33