Lives of the Poets | Page 4

her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtless praised some
whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one
whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities
contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to
bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight
imagination, which he
who flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only for
distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze.
Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him five sons
and eight daughters.
During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as living
among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and
enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of
speech and conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was,
however, considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was therefore
supposed by the courtiers not to favour them.
When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller's
political character had not been mistaken. The king's demand of a
supply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection and
discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical
complaints of imaginary grievances: "They," says he, "who think
themselves already undone, can never apprehend themselves in danger;
and they who have nothing left can never give freely." Political truth is
equally in danger from the praises of courtiers, and the exclamations of
patriots.
He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time of a
favourable audience. His topic is such as will always serve its purpose;
an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment: and he
exhorts the Commons "carefully" to "provide" for their "protection
against Pulpit Law."
It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has in his
speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in another has copied him,
without quoting. "Religion," says Waller, "ought to be the first thing in

our purpose and desires; but that which is first in dignity is not always
to precede in order of time; for well-being supposes a being; and the
first impediment which men naturally endeavour to remove, is the want
of those things without which they cannot subsist. God first assigned
unto Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title to the rest of the
creatures before he appointed a law to observe."
"God first assigned Adam," says Hooker, "maintenance of life, and
then appointed him a law to observe. True it is, that the kingdom of
God must be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but inasmuch as
a righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live virtuously it is
impossible, except we live; therefore the first impediment which
naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and want of things
without which we cannot live."
The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances ought to
be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to law
and reason: nor was Waller, if his biographer may be credited, such an
enemy to the king, as not to wish his distresses lightened; for he relates,
"that the king sent particularly to Waller, to second his demand of some
subsidies to pay off the army, and Sir Henry Vane objecting against
first voting a supply, because the king would not accept unless it came
up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to Sir Thomas Jermyn,
comptroller of the household, to save his master from the effects of so
bold a falsity; 'for,' he said, 'I am but a country gentleman, and cannot
pretend to know the king's mind:' but Sir Thomas durst not contradict
the secretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr.
Waller, that his father's cowardice ruined the king."
In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3,
1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and was
considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty and
acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge
Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship-money; and his speech
shows that he did not disappoint their expectations. He was probably
the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had been particularly engaged
in the dispute, and, by a sentence which seems generally to be thought

unconstitutional, particularly injured.
He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their opinions.
When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to be abolished,
was debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, so reasonably,
and so firmly, that it is not without great injury to his name that his
speech, which was as follows, has been hitherto omitted in his works:
"There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered from
the present bishops hath produced