One little incident, somewhat prosaic indeed, proves how little heart there was in Waller's poetical attachment to this beautiful and admirable woman. When Lady Sunderland, after a retirement of thirty years, re-appeared in the court she had once adorned, she met Waller at Lady Wharton's, and addressing him with a smiling courtesy, she reminded him of their youthful days:--"When," said she, "will you write such fine verses on me again?"--"Madam," replied Waller, "when your Ladyship is young and handsome again." This was contemptible and coarse,--the sentiment was not that of a well-bred or a feeling man, far less that of a lover or a poet,--no! Love is not love, That alters where it alteration finds. One would think that the sight of a woman, whom he had last seen in the full bloom of youth and glow of happiness,--who had endured, since they parted, such extremity of affliction, as far more than avenged his wounded vanity, might have awakened some tender thoughts, and called forth a gentler reply. When some one expressed surprise to Petrarch, that Laura, no longer young, had still power to charm and inspire him, he answered, "Piaga per allentar d'arco non sana,"--"The wound is not healed though the bow be unbent." This was in a finer spirit. Something in the same character, as his reply to Lady Sunderland, was Waller's famous repartee, when Charles the Second told him that his lines on Oliver Cromwell were better than those written on his royal self. "Please your Majesty, we poets succeed better in fiction than in truth." Nothing could be more admirably _apropos_, more witty, more courtier-like: it was only _false_, and in a poor, time-serving spirit. It showed as much meanness of soul as presence of mind. What true poet, who felt as a poet, would have said this? FOOTNOTES: [3] Alluding to the two heroines of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; Sacharissa was the grandniece of that _preux chevalier_, and hence the frequent allusions to his name and fame. [4] Alluding to Sir Philip Sydney. [5] Lines on her picture. [6] Sacharissa, the poetical name Waller himself gave her, signifies _sweetness_. [7] His infant daughter, then about two years old, afterwards Marchioness of Halifax. [8] The Countess's mother, Lady Leicester, who was then with her at Althorpe. [9] Sydney's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 271. [10] See State Poems, vol. iii. p. 396. CHAPTER III. BEAUTIES AND POETS. Nearly contemporary with Waller's Sacharissa lived several women of high rank, distinguished as munificent patronesses of poetry, and favourite themes of poets, for the time being. There was the Countess of Pembroke, celebrated by Ben Jonson, The subject of all verse, Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother.