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 good dinners and suppers, but flavoured them
delicately with compliment and repartee. In Paris he recovered his tone
of spirits, and, had his money lasted, might have remained there till
his dying day. But fines and bribes had exhausted his patrimony, and he
was compelled first to sell a property in Bedfordshire, worth more than
£1,000 a-year, then to part with his wife's jewels, and in fine to sell
the last of these, which he called "the rump jewel." His family, too,
had increased, and added to his incumbrances. His favourite was a
daughter, Margaret, born in Rouen, who acted as his amanuensis. At last,
through the intercession of his brother-in-law, Scroope, he was
permitted to return to England. This was on the 13th of January 1652.
During all his residence on the Continent, he had continued to amuse
himself with poetry, "in which," says Johnson, "he sometimes speaks of
the rebels and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honest
man." If this mean that Waller, when he uttered such sentiments, was,
for the nonce, sincere, it is quite true; but if the Doctor means that
Waller was, speaking generally, an honest man, it is not true; and Dr.
Johnson repeatedly signifies, in other parts of his life, that he does
not believe it to be true. He speaks, for instance, of the "exorbitance
of his adulation," of his "having lost the esteem of all parties," and
says, "It is not possible to read without some contempt and indignation,
poems ascribing the highest degree of _power_ and _piety_ to Charles the
First, and then transferring the same _power_ and _piety_ to Oliver
Cromwell." In keeping with this, Bishop Burnet asserts, that "in the
House he was only concerned to say what should make him applauded, and
never laid the business of the House to heart."

Waller, returning, found his mother still alive at Beaconsfield, where