497 



WALLER, EDMUND. 



WALLIN, JOHANN OLOtf. 



403 



great splendour. We are led to suppose that he was allowed to draw 

 the rental of so much of his large estates as he had not been obliged 

 to sell; but Recording to the 'Biographia Britannica,' "the chief 

 support of this magnificent way of life was derived from his wife's 

 jewels, which he had taken away with him ; " and then we are told 

 that, after ten years thus spent, he found himself reduced to what he 

 called the Rump jewel. It was during his exile that, in 1645 (not 

 1640, as misprinted in the 'Biographia Britannica'), he published in 

 8vo. the first collection of his poetry, under the title of ' Poems, &c., 

 written by Mr. Edmund Waller, of Beckonsfield, Esq., lately a member 

 of the Honourable House of Commons.' At last, apparently about 

 1653, through the interest of Colonel Scrope, who was married to one 

 of his sisters, he obtained Cromwell's permission to return to England : 

 and came over and established himself at Hail Burn (Johnson calls it 

 Hall-barn), a house he had builfc near Beaconsfield. Although his 

 mother, who lived at Beaconsfield, and often, it is said, entertained the 

 Protector in her house, continued a professed royalist, Waller soon 

 insinuated himself into great familiarity and favour with Cromwell, to 

 whom in 1654 he addressed one of the most elaborate and successful 

 of his poetical performances, under the title of ' A Panegyric to my 

 Lord Protector, of the present greatness and joint interest of his 

 Highness and this Nation.' In a similar strain he afterwards took 

 occasion, in celebrating Blake's victory over the Spanish fleet, in 

 September 1656, to recommend to Cromwell the assumption of the 

 name, as well as the power of a king. The next of his poems is still 

 in the same vein, ' On the Death of the Lord Protector ; ' but this is 

 immediately followed in the collection by one ' To the King, upon his 

 Majesty's happy Return,' which, if not as animated aa his poem to 

 Cromwell, is at least as adulatory. The Restoration however restored 

 Waller to his former position more completely than his recall by 

 Cromwell had done. He now became once more a first figure both at 

 court and in the state. It does not appear that he sat in what is 

 called the Convention Parliament, which brought the king back ; but 

 to the next, or Charles's Long Parliament, which met in March 1661, 

 and continued in existence till 1679, he was returned for Hastings ; in 

 the next, which met in March 1679, he sat for Chipping-Wycombe ; he 

 does not appear to have beau a member either of Charles's fourth par- 

 liament, which met in October 1680, or of his fifth and last, which 

 met in March 1681 ; but to the first and only parliament of James II., 

 which met on his accession in May 1685, the octogenarian poet was 

 returned as one of the members for Saltash ; and, as appears from the 

 'Parliamentary History,' he continued, old as he was, to take an active 

 part in the debates. Burnet, in his ' History of his Own Times,' says, 

 under the year 1675, " Waller was the delight of the House; and even 

 at eighty he said the liveliest things of any among them : he was only 

 concerned to say that which should make him be applauded. But he 

 never laid the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty 

 though a witty man." 



In 1665 Waller asked and obtained from King Charles the provost- 

 ship of Eton College ; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the 

 grant, on the ground that the office could be held only by a clergy- 

 man. This incident is supposed to have instigated the vindictive poet 

 to take a keen part in the proceedings of Buckingham and his faction, 

 which brought about the destruction of the chancellor. After Claren- 

 don's banishment, the provostship again became vacant, and Waller 

 asked it again of the king ; upon which his majesty referred the 

 petition to the council, before whom the question was argued by 

 counsel for three days, and was finally determined as before. 



One of Waller's latest poetical performances was a copy of verses 

 entitled ' A Presage of the Ruin of the Turkish Empire,' which he 

 presented to James II. on his birthday (in what year is not stated). 

 He was treated by James with kindness and familiarity ; but does not 

 appear to have shown any disposition to go along with him in his 

 illegal courses. He did not live to witness the Revolution ; he died 

 at Beaconsfield, on the 21st of October 1687- It is noted that his heir 

 joined the Prince of Orange. 



Of the children he had by his second wife, the eldest son, Benjamin, 

 we are told in the 'Biographia Britannica,' was "so far from inheriting 

 his father's wit, that he had not a common portion, and therefore was 

 sent to New Jersey in America." He left his estate to his second son 

 Edmund, who repeatedly represented Amersham in parliament, attach- 

 ing himself in the House to the neutral party called the Flying 

 Squadron, was esteemed in his county " a very honest gentleman and 

 a man of good sense," was not " without a taste in poetry," and ended 

 by becoming a Quaker in his latter days. His third son, William, 

 was a merchant in London ; the fourth, Dr. Stephen Waller, became 

 an eminent civilian ; of the fifth nothing is known. 



The merits of Waller as a poet have been elaborately discussed by 

 Johnson. He will scarcely be now admitted to have been even in his 

 own day what he is called by the writer of his life in the ' Biographia 

 Britannica,' "the most celebrated lyric poet that England has ever 

 produced ; " unless perhaps we are to consider a lyric poet as meaning 

 a poet who has written nothing but lyrics, and then the title would 

 not be applicable to Waller. He was certainly, in so far as respects 

 diction and versification, the most correct poetical writer that we had 

 before Pope ; and it cannot be questioned that his example had con- 

 siderable effect in regulating the form and refining the manner of our 

 poetry, although it may also have helped somewhat to tame its spirit. 



BIOU. DIV. VOL. vi. 



Yet, although there is not much glow of imagination in Waller, there 

 is often a great deal more than mere prettine-s or even elegance ; his 

 more serious pieces have frequently much dignity and elevation of 

 thought, as well as of expression. And generally his language has 

 the high merit of being a lucid mirror and exponent of his meaning, 

 giving out with perfect distinctness at least the lines and formal 

 features of the idea, however deficient it may be in the power of 

 reflecting coloured light, or rather, however little of that there may 

 be for it to reflect. 



WALLER, SIR WILLIAM, a distinguished military commander 

 on the side of the parliament in the civil wars of the 1 7th century, 

 was of the same family of the Wallers of Spendhurst in Kent, from 

 which the poet Waller was descended, and was born in 1597. After 

 pursuing his studies for a time at Magdalen Hall and Hart Hall, 

 Oxford, he went to complete his education at Paris ; and while abroad 

 he entered the service of the confederated powers (Sweden, Holland, and 

 the Protestant princes of Germany) in the war which they carried on 

 against the emperor after their league of the year 1626. On his return 

 home he received from Charles I. the honour of knighthood. In 1640 

 Sir William Waller was returned to the Long Parliament for Andover ; 

 and he immediately took his place among the opponents of the court. 

 His foreign education and service had given him a strong attachment to 

 Presbyterianism ; and he had also, it is said, smarted under the severi- 

 ties of the Star-chamber. On recourse being had to arms, Sir William 

 was appointed one of the parliamentary generals, and he greatly distin- 

 guished himself i n various occasions, especially in the reduction of 

 Portsmouth in September 1642. He was however defeated at Laus- 

 down near Bath, on the 5th of July 1643; at Round way Down near 

 Devizes, by Lord Wilmot, on the 13th of the same month ; and at the 

 same place again on the 8th of September. On the 29th of March 

 1644, Waller defeated Lord Hopeton at Cherryton Down near Win- 

 chester ; but on the 29th of June following he was in turn worsted by 

 the royal forces at Cropredy-bridge in Oxfordshire. Some of these 

 reverses which Waller sustained gave rise to warm counter-accusations 

 between him and Essex; he charging the commander-in-chief with 

 wishing to sacrifice him; Essex retorting upon Waller with reproaches 

 of want both of conduct and courage. Waller however was through- 

 out stoutly supported by his party, the Presbyterians. The self- 

 denying ordinance (passed April 3rd, 1645), deprived Waller of his 

 command ; but he continued to be looked upon as one of the leaders 

 of the Presbyterian party in the House of Commons till the impeach- 

 ment of the eleven members, of whom he was one, by the army (June 

 23rd, 1647), when he withdrew with the rest from the House. He 

 returned however after a time, and continued to attend until he was 

 driven out by force, along with all the other members of his party, by 

 Colonel Pride, on the 6th of December 1648. From this time we hear 

 no more of him till after the death of Cromwell, when, in August 1659, 

 he was taken up on the charge of being engaged in the Cheshire 

 insurrection, headed by Sir George Booth, and was detained in custody 

 till November following, when he was released on bail. He probably 

 resumed his seat in the House of Commons, with the other secluded 

 members, in February 1660 ; and he was nominated one of the Council 

 of State constituted by the House on the 25th of that month. To the 

 Convention Parliament, which met in April, he was returned as one of 

 the members for Middlesex ; but he does not appear to have sat in any 

 subsequent parliament. He died at Osterley Park in Middlesex, on 

 the 19th of September 1668. He had been three times married ; and 

 from his daughter Margaret, by his first wife, daughter and heiress of 

 Sir Richard Reynell of Ford, in Devonshire, who married Sir William 

 Courtenay of Powderham Castle, is descended the present Earl of 

 Devon ; from his daughter Anne, by his second wife, the Lady Anne 

 Finch, daughter of the first Earl of Winchelsea, who married Sir 

 Philip Harcourt, was descended the late Earl Harcourt. 



Sir William Waller is the author of a work entitled ' Divine Medita- 

 tions upon several Occasions ; with a Daily Directory,' which was 

 printed in an octavo volume at London in 1680 ; and also of a ' Vindica- 

 tion' of his own character and conduct, which was firat published from 

 his manuscript, in 8vo, with an introduction by the editor, at London 

 in 1793. Both these works give a favourable impression of his honesty 

 and ingenuousness, as well as of his shrewdness and general intellectual 

 ability ; and the second is of considerable historical value. 



WALLIN, JOHANN OLOF, an eminent Swedish poet and preacher, 

 was born in Dalecarlia on the 15th of October 1779, studied at the 

 university of Upsal, and took holy orders in 1806. He was known as 

 a poet before he became a clergyman, and received three times the 

 prize of a golden medal from the Swedish Academy, but his pro- 

 ductions were rather distinguished for fluency and elegance of language 

 than for poetical fervour, and he did not discover the vein iu which, 

 he was destined to achieve a great celebrity till the cultivation of it 

 became a kind of professional task. In 1811 a committee was ap- 

 pointed to revise and augment the Swedish Psalm and Hymn Book, 

 and Walliu, who in the preceding year had been elected " One of the 

 Eighteen " of the Swedish Academy, was appointed one of the mem- 

 bers. He disagreed with the majority of his colleagues with respect 

 to retaining some of the old hymns, which they considered too homely, 

 and finally published a separate collection, in which several of these old 

 hymns were freed from everything objectionable, by trifling alterations 

 of language, and several new ones of Wallin's own were added, which 



K. 



