Mr. Waller, when he was at Sea.......... A Presage of the Ruin of the Turkish Empire: The Battle of the Summer Islands, in three Cantos. ENCOMIUM ON WALLER. FROM ADDISON'S ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS. THE Courtly WALLER next commands thy lays; Soft, melting thoughts, and propagate desire; Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flattering song In smoother numbers and a softer verse; Thy pen had well describ'd her graceful air, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION IN 1645. MADAM, TO MY LADY. YOUR commands for the gathering of these sticks into a faggot had sooner been obeyed, but intending to present you with my whole vintage, I stayed till the latest grapes were ripe, for here your ladyship hath not only all I have done, but all I ever meant to do in this kind. Not but that I may defend the attempt I have made upon Poetry by the examples (not to trouble you with history) of many wise and worthy persons of our own times: as Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Bacon, Cardinal Perron (the ablest of his countrymen) and the former Pope, who, they say, instead of the triple crown, wore sometimes the Poet's ivy, as an ornament perhaps of lesser weight and trouble. But, madam, these nightingales sung only in the spring; it was the diversion of their youth: as ladies learn to sing and play, when they are children, what they forget when they are women. The resemblance holds further for as you quit the lute the sooner because the posture is suspected to draw the body away, so this is not always practised without some villany to the mind wresting it from present occasions, and accustoming us to a still somewhat removed from common use. But that you may not think his case deplorable who had made verses, we are told that Tully (the greatest wit among the I 1 Qu. violence? |