How is it
Waller, that you wrote a better encomium on Cromwell than on me.' May
it please your Majesty, answered the bard, with the most admirable
fineness, 'Poets generally succeed best in fiction.' Mr. Waller
continued in the full vigour of his genius to the end of his life; his
natural vivacity bore up against his years, and made his company
agreeable to the last; which appears from the following little story.

King James II having ordered the earl of Sunderland to desire Mr.
Waller to attend him one afternoon; when he came, the King carried him
into his closet, and there asked him how he liked such a picture?
'Sir, says Mr. Waller, my eyes are dim, and I know not whose it is.'
The King answered, 'It is the Princess of Orange;' and says Mr.
Waller, 'she is like the greatest woman in the world.' 'Whom do you
call so, said the King,' 'Queen Elizabeth, said he.' 'I wonder, Mr.
Waller, replied the King, you should think so; but I must confess, she
had a wise council;' and Sir, said Mr. Waller, 'did you ever know a
Fool chuse a wise one.'

Mr. Waller died of a dropsy October 21, 1687. Finding his distemper
encrease, and having yielded all hopes of recovery, he ordered his
son-in-law Dr. Peter Birch, to desire all his children to join with
him, and give him the sacrament. He at the same time professed himself
a believer in revealed religion with great earnestness, telling them,
that he remembered when the duke of Buckingham, once talked profanely
before King Charles, he told him, 'My lord, I am a great deal older
than your grace, and I believe I have heard more arguments for
atheism, than ever your grace did; but I have lived long enough to
see, there was nothing in them, and so I hope will your grace.' It is
said, that had Mr. Waller lived longer, he would have inclined to the
revolution, which by the violent measures of James II. he could
foresee would happen. He was interred in the church-yard of
Beaconsfield, where a monument is erected to his memory, the
inscriptions on it were written by Mr. Thomas Rymer.

He left several children behind him: He bequeathed his estate to his
second son Edmund, his eldest, Benjamin, being so far from inheriting
his father's wit, that he had not a common portion. Edmund, the second
Son, used to be chosen member of Parliament for Agmondesham, and in
the latter part of his life turned Quaker. William, the third son, was
a merchant in London, and Stephen, the fourth, a civilian. Of the