daughters, Mary was married to Dr. Peter Birch, prebendary of
Westminster; another to Mr. Harvey of Suffolk, another to Mr. Tipping
of Oxfordshire.

These are the most material circumstances in the life of Mr. Waller, a
man whose wit and parts drew the admiration of the world upon him when
he was living, and has secured him the applause of posterity. As a
statesman, lord Clarendon is of opinion, he wanted steadiness, and
even insinuates, that he was deficient in point of honour; the earl at
least construes his timidity, and apparent cowardice, in a way not
very advantageous to him.

All men have honoured him as the great refiner of English poetry, who
restored numbers to the delicacy they had lost, and joined to
melifluent cadence the charms of sense. But as Mr. Waller is
unexceptionally the first who brought in a new turn of verse, and gave
to rhime all the graces of which it was capable, it would be injurious
to his fame, not to present the reader with the opinions of some of
the greatest men concerning him, by which he will be better able to
understand his particular excellencies, and will see his beauties in
full glow before him. To begin with Mr. Dryden, who, in his dedication
to the Rival Ladies, addressed to the earl of Orrery, thus
characterizes Waller.

'The excellency and dignity of rhime were never fully known till Mr.
Waller sought it: He first made writing easily an art; first shewed us
to conclude the sense most commonly in distichs, which in the verses
of those before him, runs on for so many lines together, that the
reader is out of breath to overtake it.'

Voltaire, in his letters concerning the English nation, speaking of
British poets, thus mentions Waller. 'Our author was much talked of in
France. He had much the same reputation in London that Voiture had in
Paris; and in my opinion deserved it better. Voiture was born in an
age that was just emerging from barbarity; an age that was still rude
and ignorant; the people of which aimed at wit, tho' they had not the
least pretensions to it, and sought for points and conceits instead of
sentiments. Bristol stones are more easily found than diamonds.
Voiture born with an easy and frivolous genius, was the first who
shone in this Aurora of French literature. Had he come into the world
after those great genius's, who spread such glory over the age of
Lewis XIV, he would either have been unknown, would have been
despised, or would have corrected his sti