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and then a feeble verfe, or a trifling thought; but its fault is the choice of its hero.

great

The poem of The War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and ftriking than Waller is aceuftó:ned to produce. The fucceeding parts are variegated with better paffages and worfe. There is fomething too farfetched in the comparifon of the Spaniards drawing the English on, by faluting St. Lucar with cannon, to lambs awakening the lion by bleating. The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who were burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the Phoenix, because he had fpices about him, nor expreffed their affection and their end by a conceit at once false and vulgar: i

Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,

And now together are to ashes turn'd.

The verfes to Charles, on his Return, were doubtlefs intended to counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been thought inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its deficience has been already remarked.

The remaining pieces it is not neceffary to examine fingly, They must be supposed to have faults and beauties of the fame kind with the reft. The Sacred Poems, however, deferve particular regard; they were the work of Waller's declining life, of thofe hours in which he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time paft with the fentiments which his great predeceffor Petrarch bequeathed to pofterity, upon his review of that love and poetry which have given him immortality..

That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much excellence in another, always

produces

produces a difpofition to believe that the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to confefs fuperior, is haftening daily to a level with ourselves. By delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the exact time when his genius paffed the zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a fmall portion. Intellectual decay is doubtless not uncommon; but it seems not to be univerfal, Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving his Chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to have loft at eighty-two any part of his poetical power.

His Sacred Poems do not please like fome of his other works; but before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the fame subjects, his fuccefs would hardly · have been better*.

It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry; that they have very feldom attained their end is fufficiently known, and it may not be improper to enquire why they have mifcarried.

Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in oppofition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of religion may indeed

*Thefe were written, as Fenton afferts, after the author had ate tained the age of fourfcore, and that on the Fear of God at his age of eighty-two. It was given by him to Thomas Elwood, a neighbour of his at Coleshill, mentioned in a preceding note on the life of Milton, and feems to have first appeared in that edition of Waller's poems which contains his life.

be

be defended in a didactick poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verfe, will not lofe it because his fubject is facred, A poet may describe the beauty and the grandeur of Nature, the flowers of the Spring, and the harvests of Autumn, the viciffitudes of the Tide, and the revolutions of the Sky, and praise the Maker for his works in lines which no reader fhall lay afide. The fubject of the difputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.

Contemplative piety, or the intercourfe between God and the human foul, cannot be poetical. Man admit、 ted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.

The effence of poetry is invention; fuch invention as, by producing fomething unexpected, surprises and delights. The topicks of devotion are few, and being few are universally known; but, few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of fentiment, and very little from novelty of expreffion.

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the difplay of thofe parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel the imagination: but religion must be fhewn as it is; fuppreffion and addition equally corrupt it; and fuch as it is, it is known already.

From poetry the reader juftly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehenfion and elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped by Chriftians from metrical devo

tion. Whatever is great, defireable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.

The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invefted by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effufions, yet addreffed to a Being without paffions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather than expreffed.:: Repentance trembling in the prefence of the judge, is not at, leifure for cadences and epithets Supplication of man to man may diffuse itfelf through many topicks of perfuafion; but fupplication to God can only cry for mercy.

Of fentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most fimple expreffion is the moft fublime. Poetry lofes its luftre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of fomething more excellent than itself. All that pious verfe can do is to help the memory, and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it fupplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Chriftian Theology are too fimple for eloquence, too facred for fiction, and too majestick for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the fidereal hemifphere,

སྐྱ

L. As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the foftness and smoothness of his Numbers; it is proper to confider those minute particulars to which a versifyer muft, attend.

iHe certainly very much excelled in fmoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry com

menced.

menced. The Poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or for gotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his mo-. del; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davis, which, though merely philofophical, yet feldom leaves the ear ungratified.

But he was rather smooth than ftrong; of the full refounding line, which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The critical decifion has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of fweetness to Waller.

His excellence of verfification has fome abatements. He uses the expletive do very frequently; and though he used to see it almoft univerfally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his laft compofitions than in his firft. Praife had given him confidence; and finding the world fatisfied, he fatisfied himself.

His rhymes are sometimes weak words: so is found to make the rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.

His double rhymes, in heroick verfe, have been cenfured by Mr. Phillips, who was his rival in the tranflation of Corneille's Pompey; and more faults might be found, were not the enquiry below attention. A • He fometimes ufes the obfolete termination of verbs, as waxeth, affecteth; and fometimes retains the final fyllable of the preterite, as amazed, fuppofed; of which I know not whether it is not to the detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.

Of triplets he is fparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an Alexandrine he has given no example.

The