more definitely in the key of common-sense. We are told with scrupulous fidelity, the puff of the oranges and grapes and melons being finished,what exactly happened on this curious occasion:-- "The Boat which on the first assault did go, Vext with unwonted heats, boils, flings about It is very difficult in reading these lines to realise that when they were written Dryden was an infant, and that the men were still in the prime of life who had known Shakespeare and had served him in the production of his romantic plays. In 1639, the year after the composition of The Battle of the Summer Islands, Lady Dorothy Sidney suddenly grew tired of hearing Waller "twang his tiresome instrument Above her unconcern," and she married Henry, Lord Spencer, who was presently created Earl of Sunderland. However young Sacharissa may have been when Waller first addressed her, she must have been by this time a good deal older than her bridegroom, who was only nineteen. After four short years of married life, her young husband was killed fighting for his King at the battle of Newbury, and Sacharissa settled down for forty years as a widow, devoting herself to the education of three children, and never losing sight of her old persistent poet-lover. There is a story extant to the effect that when they were both very old the Dowager Duchess of Sunderland rallied her friend by saying, "Ah! Mr Waller, when will you make such beautiful verses about me again?" "Madam," said the poet, with more of gallantry, we must hope, in his eyes than in his words, "when your ladyship is as young again!" But before we turn from the Sacharissa episode which has taken so prominent a part in the legend of Waller's life, we must quote the letter which he wrote to Lady Lucy Sidney, the younger sister, in July, 1639, when Sacharissa had just been married. "MADAM, In this common joy at Penshurst I know none to whom complaints may come less unseasonable than to your Ladyship; the loss of a bed-fellow being almost equal to that of a mistress: and there fore you ought, at least, to pardon, if you consent not to, the imprecations of the deserted; which just heaven no doubt will hear! 66 May my Lady Dorothy, (if we may yet call her so,) suffer so much, and have the like passion for this young Lord, whom she has preferr'd to the rest of mankind, as others have had for her! And may this love, before the year go about, make her taste of the first curse impos'd on womankind, the pains of becoming a mother! May her first-born be none of her own sex! nor so like her, but that he may resemble her Lord as much as herself! 66 'May she that always affected silence, and retiredness, have the house fill'd with the noise, and number, of her children; and hereafter of her grandchildren! and then, may she arrive at that great curse so much declin'd by fair Ladies, old age! May she live to be very old, and yet seem young; be told so by her glass, and have no aches to inform her of the truth! And when she shall appear to be mortal, may her Lord not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to that place, where we are told there is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage; that being there divorced, we may all have an equal interest in her again! My revenge being immortal, I wish all this may also befall their posterity to the world's end, and afterwards! "To you, Madam, I wish all good things; and that this loss may in good time be happily supply'd with a more constant bed-fellow of the other sex. "Madam, I humbly kiss your hands, and beg pardon for this trouble, from "Your Ladyship's most humble servant, EDM. WALLER." Among the poems which belong to the Sacharissa period, but show much more than the lyrics the classical tendency of Waller's taste, that Upon His Majesty's repairing of Paul's demands especial notice, because of its popularity, and the influence which it exercised upon younger minds. That Waller's poems circulated in MS. so widely as to enjoy positive popularity is proved by an allusion to this piece, which forms the earliest mention of Waller which I have been able to discover, and which preceded by three years the publication of the lines referred to. In the first anonymous edition of his Cooper's Hill, an edition in which the poet displayed the courage of his anonymity, Sir John Denham delivers himself of the following notable piece of criticism. He is standing on Cooper's Hill, and surveying the horizon, till he reaches the point where the cathedral cuts. J 66 Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse whose flight Has bravely reached and soared above thy height; Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire, Secure while thee the best of Poets sings, Preserved from ruin by the best of Kings." And for fear that his readers should not know who "the best of Poets" was, Denham adds a note, "Master Waller," a note in subsequent editions reduced to M. W. But here, in 1642, before Waller had printed a line, we find him boldly addressed as "the best of Poets" by the pupil who was treading most closely in his footsteps, and who, though ten years his junior, had outstripped him in the date of publication. We must reserve consideration of Denham, however, until our next chapter, and glance for a few moments at the poem which called forth such eulogy from him. We find it to be of the class which we are beginning to expect from Waller— that is, an adroit and graphic account in graceful distichs of an event which was happening at that moment to entertain the public. The commissioners had met to discuss the question of rebuilding St Paul's in 1632, and in the following spring the mean buildings which were clustered around the cathedral, and which clung to its sides |