horror.

Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say
whether it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginning
is too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light for
seriousness. The versification is studied, the scenes are
diligently displayed, and the images artfully amplified; but as it
ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be read a second
time.

The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very
liberal dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have
been unjustly lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely
appeared before in the English language. Of the lines some are
grand, some are graceful, and all are musical. There is now and
then a feeble verse; or a trifling thought; but its great fault is
the choice of its hero.

The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and
striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts
are variegated with better passages and worse. There is something
too farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the
English on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening
the lion by bleating." The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who
were burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet not
made him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor
expressed their affection and their end by a conceit at once false
and vulgar: