Ev'n aged men, as if they truly were
Children again, for age prepare;
Provifions for long travel they defign,
In the last point of their short line.

Wifely the ant against poor Winter hoards The ftock which Summer's wealth affords; In grafhoppers, that must at autumn die, How vain were such an industry?

Of pow'r and honour the deceitful light
Might half excuse our cheated fight,
If it of life the whole small time would stay,
And be our sunshine all the day.

Like lightning that, begot but in a cloud,
(Though fhining bright and speaking loud)
Whilft it begins, concludes its violent race,
And where it gilds, it wounds the place.

When WALLER, kindling with celestial rage,
View'd the bright Harley of that wond'ring age,
His pleasing pain he taught the lute to breathe;
The Graces fung, and wore his myrtle wreath.-
His Mufe, by Nature form'd to please the fair,
Or fing of heroes with majestic air,

To melting ftrains attun'd her voice, and strove
To waken all the tender pow'rs of love.—
The florid and fublime, the grave and gay,
From WALLER's beams imbibe a purer ray.---
Maker and model of melodious verfe!

Accept thefe votive honours at thy hearse.

FENTON.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY MUNDELL AND SON, PARLIAMENT STAIRS.

Anno 179.

LIFE OF WALL ER.

EDMUND WALLER was fortunately exempted from those usual concomitants of genius, obfcurity in the commencement of life, and Poverty during its continuance,—his father having been a gentleman of family and fortune in Buckinghamshire, and his mother sister to the celebrated Hampden. The poet himself was born at Coleshill in Hertfordshire on the 3d of March 1605.

His father dying in the infancy of his son, left him heir to an estate worth three thousand five hundred pounds a-year; an income more than equivalent to ten thousand pounds of our money at present. He was educated at Eaton, whence he removed to King's College, Cambridge.

His debut both in politics and poetry was splendid and early; for he was chosen a member of parliament in his eighteenth year; and then too, gave a specimen to the world of his genius, in a copy of verses on the Prince's (Charles I.'s) escape at St. Andero, which at once displayed that correct taste 、 and fuavity of numbers for which he is fo juftly celebrated; and which he seems to have intuitively poffeffed, fince no models exifted at that time, in the English language, from which he could copy them.

Waller, happily for himself, being placed above the neceffity of writing for fubfiftence, compofed all his pieces occafionally, at different intervals, from his eighteenth to his eightieth year. Our poet indeed found a much shorter road for improving his fortune than that leading to Parnaffus, having married a rich city heiress, though opposed by the intereft of the court, who wished to provide for the lady a different husband. She dying in a short time, left him a widower of five and twenty, in the full enjoyment of health, wit, and affluence, to commence a fresh matrimonial engagement.

Young, rich, vain, amorous and ambitious, our poet became the fuitor of the lady Dorothea Sydney, eldest daughter to the Earl of Leicester. To her we are indebted for those elegant effusions of poetical gallantry, in which she is celebrated under the name of Sacharissa; an appellation which unhappily did not accord with the lady's difpofition; for, in spite of his beautiful verses, she treated his love with dignified difdain, and at once quafhed his hopes and extinguished his paffion, by bestowing her hand on the Earl of Sunderland.

Waller was not, however, driven to defpair; but diverted his disappointment by transferring his affec tion and his poetry to new objects; and accordingly attached himself to Lady Sophia Murray, who is supposed to be the Amoret of fome of his most pleasing pieces.

About the year 1640, he is thought to have taken a voyage to the islands of Bermudas, which fupplied the incidents and imagery of his poem on the battle of the Whales, the most confiderable for length of all his pieces. It displays his ufual felicity of verfification, with some vigorous paffages; but it is not eafy to determine whether it was intended for a ferious or a mock heroic poem.

Between his twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth year he also compofed several leffer pieces, fuch as that on the reduction of Sallee,-on the the, repairs of St. Paul's Church,-on the Navy, &c. In all these, the sweetness of his numbers are Confpicuous; and he sometimes furpaffes himself in energy of thought, and vivacity of expreffion.

Waller was not of a complexion to remain long without a mate. He obtained the hand of a lady of the name of Breffe, unaided by poetry. In reality pectry is no adjunct to domeftic felicity. True hone-felt blifs, like a deep ftream, makes the least noise in its course; and that fuch Waller enjoyed

in