smoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of observation, he
had already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never
afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. Denham
corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually
upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham was
inherited by Waller.

The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is
supposed by Mr. Fenton to be the "Address to the Queen," which he
considers as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year.
He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation's
obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written
when she had brought many children. We have therefore no date of
any other poetical production before that which the murder of the
Duke of Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness with which the king
received the news in the chapel deserved indeed to be rescued from
oblivion.

Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could
have been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on the
prince's escape, the prediction of his marriage with the Princess of
France must have been written after the event; in the other, the
promises of the king's kindness to the descendants of Buckingham,
which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by its
effects, show that time was taken for revision and improvement. It
is not known that they were published till they appeared long
afterwards with other poems.

Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their
minds at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he was by