Mr. Dryden[3] and Mr. Addison[4] have joined in giving testimony against our author, as to the choice of his verse, which they condemn as boyish and being apt to degenerate into the doggrel; but while they censure his verse, they applaud his matter, and Dryden observes, that had he chose any other verse, he would even then have excelled; as we say of a court favourite, that whatever his office be, he still makes it uppermost, and most beneficial to him. We cannot close the life of this great man, without a reflection on the degeneracy of those times, which suffered him to languish in obscurity; and though he had done more against the Puritan interest, by exposing it to ridicule, than thousands who were rioting at court with no pretensions to favour, yet he was never taken notice of, nor had any calamity redressed, which leaves a stain on those who then ruled, that never can be obliterated. A minister of state seldom fails to reward a court tool, and a man of pleasure pays his instruments for their infamy, and what character must that ministration bear, who allow wit, loyalty and virtue to pass neglected, and, as Cowley pathetically expresses it, 'In that year when manna rained on all, why should the muses fleece be only dry.' The following epigram is not unworthy [of] a place here. Whilst Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No gen'rous patron would a dinner give; But lo behold! when dead, the mould'ring dust, Rewarded with a monumental bust! A poet's fate, in emblem here is shewn, He ask'd for bread, and he received--a stone. Footnotes: 1. Life of Butler, p 6. 2. Posthumous Works of Wycherly, published by Mr. Theobald. 3. Juv. Ded. 4. Spect. No. 6. Vol. i. * * * * * EDMUND WALLER Esq; Was descended of a family of his name in Buckinghamshire, a younger branch of the Wallers of Kent. He was born March 3, 1605 at Coleshill, which gives Warwickshire the honour of his birth. His father dying when he was very young, the care of his education fell to his mother, who sent him to Eton School, according to the author of his life, but Mr. Wood says, 'that he was mostly educated in grammaticals under one Dobson, minister of Great Wycombe in Bucks, who had been educated in Eton school,' without mentioning that Mr. Waller had been at all at Eton school: after he had acquired grammar learning, he was removed to King's college in Cambridge, and it is manifest that he must have been extremely assiduous in his studies, since he acquired so fine a taste of the ancients, in so short a time, for at sixteen or seventeen years of age, he was chosen into the last Parliament of King James I. and served as Burgess for Agmondesham.