imply fome motive to virtue, I believe it will be ferviceable to many of his admirers, in a few cursory Remarks, to give an account of the occafions on which fome of his poems were written, and the characters of the perfons to whom others were addreffed; many of which, at the distance of an hundred years, must be grown obfcure to most of his readers. Nor fhall I be much concerned at the cenfure of those who may think I have bestowed too much pains on a modern poet of our own nation, before I am convinced that we owe lefs to the memory of Mr. Waller, than Italy and France have long fince paid to their Petrarch and Malherbe; the former of whom is faid to have employed as many commentators as even Virgil himfelf; and not only the learned Menage, but all the French Academy, thought the latter highly deferved their confideration.

VOL. I.

MISCELLANIES.

Of the danger his Majefty (being Prince) efcaped in the road at St. Andero, p. 57.

THIS poem may serve as a model for those who intend to fucceed in panegyrick, in which our Author illustrates a plain historical fact with all the graces of poetical fiction; as will appear by comparing it with

the fubject, as the writers of that age have left it recorded. Prince Charles having spent about fix months at Madrid in soliciting a marriage with the Infanta of Spain, was at length disgusted with the affected delays which he met with in that court, and refolved on returning to England. The royal navy, under the command of the Earl of Rutland, being arrived in the Bay of Biscay, at the port of St. Andero, he was attended from Madrid by the Cardinal Zapata, the Marquis Aytone, the Earls of Gondemar, Monterie, Baraias, and other grandees, whom the Prince entertained magnificently on shipboard; but in carrying them back to shore, a tempeft overtook them with so much fury, that they could neither reach land nor regain the fleet; and night coming on when the rowers were fainting with toil, their horrour was almost increased to despair. In this calamity they yielded themfelves to the mercy of the feas, till at last they spied a light in a fhip, near to which the storm had driven them, on which, not without much danger of being dafhed to pieces, they were fafely received; and when the tempeft abated his Highness returned to the Admiral, and arrived at Portsmouth on the 5th of October 1623, when (as our English Cicero expreffeth it) the whole nation feemed for joy to go out beyond its own fhores to meet him. This adventure happened in the eighteenth year of Mr. Waller's age; by which it appears that he began to write only twenty

five years after the Death of Spenser, of whom I shall fay something more in the course of theseObservations.

Of his Majefty's receiving the news of the Duke of Buckingham's death, p. 63.

GEORGE VILLIERS, Duke of Buckingham, was a perfon whom Nature seemed to have folicitously intended for a court, and Fortune was equally industrious to accomplish her intentions. At his first appearance there he was received with the smile of K. James 1. who, from the station of a private gentleman, in a few years advanced him to all the dignities that even himfelf could defire; and no other person was employed in any eminent poft, who did not owe their rife to, or their dependence entitely upon, him. By a fingular felicity he preferved and improved the fame intereft with K. Charles I.; fo that the crown of England, upon whatever head it fhone, seemed to have been destined to reflect a lustre on his fortune. In this career of profperity he gave the rein to many criminal paffions, and thought nothing unlawful that could gratify his luft, his ambition, or his revenge, which precipitated him into many unpopular and unjustifiable actions, by which at length he became odious to the nation; till Providence suffered him to be cut off in the full strength and verdure of his age (for he had not exceeded the thirty-fixth year) by the vulgar

hand of a melancholick affaffin. The perfon was one Lieut. Felton, who apprehended himself injured by the Duke, who, upon the vacancy of a captain's com miffion, had placed another in that poft, to which Felton thought that his fervices entitled him. Accordingly, to accomplish his revenge, when the Duke was at Portsmouth, ready to embark on board the fleet that was to relieve Rochelle, the Lieutenant purfued him thither, where waiting an opportunity to perpetrate his horrid defign, at the first that offered itfelf he ftabbed him to the heart; the court being then at Southwick, the feat of Sir Daniel Norton, about five miles diftant from the scene where this tragedy was acted. The King's behaviour on this occafion is the fubject of Mr. Waller's poem. The Duke having been murdered on the 23d of August 1628, it is evident that Mr. Waller wrote this poem anno ætat. 23.

On the taking of Salle, p. 65.

SALLE is a city in the province of Fez, and derives its name from the river Sala, on which it is fituated, near its influx into the Atlantick ocean. It was a place of good commerce, till addicting itself entirely to piracy, and revolting from its allegiance to the Emperour of Morocco, in the year 1632 he sent an embassy to King Charles, defiring him to send a squadron of men of war to lie before the town whilst he attacked Volume II.

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it by land; which the King confenting to, the city was foon reduced, the fortifications demolished, and the leaders of the rebellion put to death. The year following the Emperour fent another ambaffador with a prefent of fine Barbary horfes, and three hundred Christian flaves; at the fame time defiring his Ma¬ jefty, that fince it had pleafed God to be so aufpi46 cious to their beginning in the conquest of Salle, "they might join and fucceed, with hope of like fuc'cefs, in war against Tunis, Algier, and other places, "dens and receptacles for the inhuman villanies of "those that abhor rule and government." From whence it appears that Mr. Waller wrote this poem anno ætat. 28.

Puerperium, p. 73.

As far as we are able to guess, at this distance, Mr, Waller feems to have written this poem in the year 1640, anno ætaṭ. 31, before the Queen was delivered, at Oatlands, of her fourth fon, Henry Duke of Gloucefter, while the Scots were marching into England.

The Countess of Carliste in mourning, p. 74.

To form a juft idea of the person whose death occafioned the writing of these verses, it will be necessary to peruse his character, as it is drawn by the Earl of