Part 24 (2/2)

The characters, by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings, are sprightliness and dignity; in his smaller pieces, he endeavours to be gay; in the larger, to be great. Of his airy and light productions, the chief source is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence which has descended to us from the Gothick ages. As his poems are commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, he was not so liberally supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more easily found than magnanimity.

The delicacy which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicety and caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He has, therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldom any thing ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best; though his subjects are often unworthy of his care. It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author who is growing ill.u.s.trious in his own opinion by verses, at one time, to a Lady who can do any thing but sleep when she pleases; at another, to a Lady who can sleep when she pleases; now, to a Lady on her pa.s.sing through a crowd of people; then, on a Braid of divers colours, woven by four fair Ladies; on a tree cut in paper; or, to a Lady, from whom he received the copy of verses on the paper tree, which for many years had been missing.

Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the subject. But compositions merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in time for something useful: they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of short duration; or they are blossoms to be valued only as they foretell fruits. Among Waller's little poems are some which their excellency ought to secure from oblivion; as, to Amoret, comparing the different modes of regard, with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and the verses on Love, that begin, ”Anger in hasty words or blows.”

In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts are deficient, and sometimes his expression.

The numbers are not always musical; as,

Fair Venus, in thy soft arms The G.o.d of rage confine: For thy whispers are the charms Which only can divert his fierce design.

What though he frown, and to tumult do incline; Thou the flame Kindled in his breast canst tame With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.

He seldom, indeed, fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of science; his thoughts are, for the most part, easily understood, and his images such as the superficies of nature readily supplies; he has a just claim to popularity, because he writes to common degrees of knowledge; and is free, at least, from philosophical pedantry, unless, perhaps, the end of a song to the sun may be excepted, in which he is too much a Copernican. To which may be added, the simile of the palm in the verses, on her pa.s.sing through a crowd; and a line in a more serious poem on the Restoration, about vipers and treacle, which can only be understood by those who happen to know the composition of the Theriaca.

His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical, and his images unnatural:

The plants admire, No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre: If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, They round about her into arbours crowd: Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand, Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band.

In another place:

While in the park I sing, the listening deer Attend my pa.s.sion, and forget to fear: When to the beeches I report my flame, They bow their heads, as if they felt the same: To G.o.ds appealing, when I reach their bowers, With loud complaints they answer me in showers.

To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven!

On the head of a stag:

O fertile head! which every year Could such a crop of wonder bear!

The teeming earth did never bring, So soon so hard, so huge a thing: Which might it never have been cast, Each year's growth added to the last, These lofty branches had supply'd The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride: Heaven with these engines had been scal'd, When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.

Sometimes, having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble conclusion. In the song of Sacharissa's and Amoret's Friends.h.i.+p, the two last stanzas ought to have been omitted.

His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree delicate:

Then shall my love this doubt displace.

And gain such trust, that I may come And banquet sometimes on thy face, But make my constant meals at home.

Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; as in the verses on the Lady Dancing:

The sun in figures such as these Joys with the moon to play: To the sweet strains they advance, Which do result from their own spheres; As this nymph's dance Moves with the numbers which she hears.

Sometimes a thought, which might, perhaps, fill a distich, is expanded and attenuated, till it grows weak and almost evanescent:

Chloris! since first our calm of peace Was frighted hence, this good we find, Your favours with your fears increase, And growing mischiefs make you kind.

So the fair tree, which still preserves Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows, In storms from that uprightness swerves; And the glad earth about her strows With treasure from her yielding boughs.

His images are not always distinct; as, in the following pa.s.sage, he confounds love, as a person, with love, as a pa.s.sion:

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