that the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of those
whom in modern language we term wits, says, that they are "open
flatterers, and private mockers." Waller showed a little of both,
when, upon sight of the Duchess of Newcastle's verses on the Death
of a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compositions
to have written them, and being charged with the exorbitance of his
adulation, answered, that "nothing was too much to be given, that a
lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance."
This, however, was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation
from truth; had his hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, he
might have been forgiven, though not praised: for who forbears to
flatter an author or a lady?

Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his
resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem
of every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from
Charles the Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only
the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's son.

As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and
his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to
monarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his
connexion with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with
great bitterness; and the invective which he pronounced on that
occasion was so popular, that twenty thousand copies are said by his
biographer to have been sold in one day.

It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at
least many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is
universally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him