uncil of War. Waller feigns himself so ill with remorse of
conscience, that his trial is put off that he "may recover his
understanding." Hassel dies the night before the trial. Tomkins and
Chaloner are hanged before their own doors. Hampden escapes punishment,
but is retained in prison, where he dies; and the subordinates just
referred to (Blinkorne and White) are pardoned. Northumberland, owing to
his rank, is only once examined before the Lords. Those whose names were
inserted in the commission of array are treated as malignants, and their
estates seized.

Waller, having received some respite, employed the time in petitioning,
flattering, bribing, confessing, beseeching, and in the exercise of
every other art by which a mean, cowardly spirit seeks to evade death.
He appealed from the military jurisdiction to the House of Commons, and
was admitted to plead his cause at their bar. His speech was humble,
conciliating, and artful, but failed to gain the object. He was expelled
from the House, and soon after was sisted before the Court of War, and
condemned to die. He was reprieved, however, by Essex, and at the end of
a year's imprisonment, the sentence was commuted into a fine of L10,000,
and banishment for life. He was sent to "recollect himself in another
country." He had previously expended, it is said, L30,000 in bribes.

Waller's conduct in this whole matter was a mixture of cowardice and
meanness. Recollecting his poetical temperament, and the well-known
stories of Demosthenes at Cheronea, and Horace at Philippi, we are not
disposed to be harsh on his cowardice, but we have no excuse for his
meanness. It discovers a want of heart, and an infinite littleness of
soul. We can hardly conceive him to have possessed a drop of the blood
of Hampden or Cromwell in his veins, and cease to wonder why two
high-spirited ladies of rank should have spurned the homage of a poetic
poltroon, whom instinctively they seem to have known to be such, even
before he proved it to the world.

"Infamous, and _not_ contented," Waller repairs to the Continent, first
to Rouen, then to Switzerland and Italy, in company with his friend
Evelyn, and, in fine, settles for a season in Paris. Here he keeps open
table for the banished royalists, as well as for the French wits, till
his means are impaired by his liberality. A middling poet, a pitiful
politician, a fickle dangler in affairs of love, Waller was an admirable
_host_, and not only gave go