“Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Have ye not seen us walking every day? Was there a tree about, which did not know The love betwixt us two? Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade, Or your sad branches thicker join, And into darksome shades combine, Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid.” Tennyson wrote of _his_ dead friend, and here is a verse of it: “The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well Thro’ four sweet years, arose and fell From flower to flower, from snow to snow; But where the path we walk’d began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended, following hope, _There_ sat the shadow feared of man, Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapped thee formless in the fold, And dulled the murmur on thy lip, And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow--though I walk in haste; And think--that somewhere in the waste, The shadow sits, and waits for me!” Can I be wrong in thinking that under the solemn lights of these stanzas the earlier poet’s verse grows dim? Cowley was a good Kingsman; and in the days of the Commonwealth held position of secretary to the exiled Queen Henrietta, in Paris; he did, at one time, think of establishing himself in one of the American colonies; returned, however, to his old London haunts, and, wearying of the city, sought retirement at Chertsey, on the Thames’ banks (where his old house is still to be seen), and where he wrote, in graceful prose and cumbrous verse, on subjects related to country life--which he loved overmuch--and died there among his trees and the meadows. Waller was both Kingsman and Republican--steering deftly between extremes, so as to keep himself and his estates free from harm. This will weaken your sympathy for him at once--as it should do. He lived in a grand way--affected the philosopher; _was_ such a philosopher as quick-witted selfishness makes; yet he surely had wonderful aptitudes in dealing with language, and could make its harmonious numbers flow where and how he would. Waller has come to a casual literary importance in these days under the deft talking and writing of those dilettante critics who would make this author the pivot (as it were) on which British poesy swung away from the “hysterical riot of the Jacobeans” into measured and orderly classic cadence. It is a large influence to attribute to a single writer, though his grace and felicities go far to justify it. And it is further to be remembered that such critics are largely given to the discussion of _technique_ only; they write as distinct art-masters; while we, who are taking our paths along English Letters for many other things besides art and rhythm, will, I trust, be pardoned for thinking that there is very little pith or weighty matter in this great master of the juggleries of sound.