hael, whose tremendous sword mingled in and all but decided
the fray. And we thought what a junction were that of the two powers--of
the sword and the pen, the actor and the recorder, the man to do, and
the poet to sing! Waller in his panegyric sees and shews in a few lines
Cromwell's relation to Britain, and that of both to the world:--

"Heaven that has placed this island to give law,
To balance Europe, and her states to awe,
In this conjunction does on Britain smile,
_The greatest leader and the greatest isle_."

He saw that in Cromwell, and in Cromwell alone, had the power of Britain
come to a point: IT was made, if not to be the governor to be the
moderator of the earth, and HE was sent to govern it, to condense its
scattered energies, to awe down its warring factions, and to wield all
its forces to one good and great end. In him for the first time had the
wild island, the Bucephalus of the West, found a rider able, by backing,
bridling, and curbing him, to give due direction and momentum to his
fury, force, and speed.

He has scattered some other precious particles of thought in this poem,
such as:--

"Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea."

"The Caledonians, arm'd with want and cold."

"The states, changed by you,
Changed like the world's great scene, when without noise,
The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys."

"Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
_And every conqueror creates a Muse_."

When Cromwell died, Waller again lifted up his pen, and indited a short
lamentation over his loss. After the Restoration, he was one of the
first to read a poetical recantation of his errors in verses addressed
to Charles II. In 1661 he was returned to parliament for Hastings, in
Sussex, and sat afterwards at various times for Chipping-Wycombe, and
Saltash. In parliament, he was rather famed for his lively sallies of
wit, than for his logic, sense, or earnestness. In private, his spirits,
even without the aid of wine,--which he never drank,--continued to a
great age unusually buoyant. As he advanced in life he became more
religious, and intermixed a vein of devotion with his verse. When
eighty-two, he bought a small estate in Coleshill, near his native
place, desirous, he said, "to die, like the stag, where he was roused."
His wish, however, was not granted. Seized with tumours in his legs, he
went to Windsor to consult Sir Charles