Waller

From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781.

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Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill in Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, esq. of Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden in the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.

His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to ten thousand at the present time.

He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed afterwards to King's college, in Cambridge. He was sent to parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the first, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the writer of the life prefixed to his works, who seems to have been well informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably certain:

"He found Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, bishop of Durham, standing behind his majesty's chair; and there happened something extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the conversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His majesty asked the bishops: 'My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money, when I want it, without all this formality of parliament?' The bishop of Durham readily answered, 'God forbid, sir, but you should: you are the breath of our nostrils.' Whereupon the king turned and said to the bishop of Winchester, 'Well, my lord, what say you?' 'Sir,' replied the bishop, 'I have no skill to judge of parliamentary cases.' The king answered, 'No put-offs, my lord; answer me presently.' 'Then, sir,' said he, 'think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale's money; for he offers it.' Mr. Waller said, the company was pleased with this answer, and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; for, a certain lord coming in soon after, his majesty cried out, 'Oh, my lord, they say you lig with my lady.' 'No, sir,' says his lordship, in confusion;' but I like her company, because she has so much wit.' 'Why then,' says the king, 'do you not lig with my lord of Winchester there?'"

Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, on the Prince's Escape at St. Andero; a piece which justifies the observation, made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like instinct, a style which, perhaps, will never be obsolete; and that, "were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at fourscore." His versification was, in his first essay, such