of Durham, standing behind his Majesty's chair; and there happened
something extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the
conversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller
did often reflect. His Majesty asked the bishops, 'My Lords, cannot
I take my subject's money, when I want it, without all this
formality of Parliament?' The Bishop of Durham readily answered,
'God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the breath of our
nostrils.' Whereupon the king turned and said to the Bishop of
Winchester, 'Well, my Lord, what say you?' 'Sir,' replied the
bishop, 'I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases. The king
answered, 'No put-offs, my Lord; answer me presently.' 'Then, Sir,'
said he, 'I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale's
money; for he offers it.' Mr. Waller said the company was pleased
with this answer, and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; for a
certain lord coming in soon after, his Majesty cried out, 'Oh, my
lord, they say you lig with my Lady.' 'No, Sir,' says his lordship
in confusion; 'but I like her company, because she has so much wit.'
'Why, then,' says the king, 'do you not lig with my Lord of
Winchester there?'"

Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his
eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works,
on "The Prince's Escape at St. Andero:" a piece which justifies the
observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a
felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be
obsolete; and that "were we to judge only by the wording, we could
not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at' fourscore." His
versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his
last performance. By the perusal of Fairfax's translation of Tasso,
to which, as Dryden relates, he confessed himself indebted for the