SOURCE: Bateson, F. W. “A Word for Waller.” In English Poetry: A Critical Introduction, pp. 116-22. London: Longmans, 1950.

In the following essay, Bateson explores reasons for the decline in Waller's reputation as a poet.

Waller is the Augustan Wyatt. ‘Unless he had written’, Dryden owned, ‘none of us could write.’¹ In the memorial volume that Rymer, the critic and historian, edited in 1688 Sir Thomas Higgons compared Waller's contribution to the English language with Petrarch's to Italian:

The English he hath to Perfection brought; And we to speak are by his Measures taught. Those very Words, which are in Fashion now, He brought in Credit half an Age ago. Thus Petrarch mended the Italian Tongue: And now they speak the Language which he sung.(2) 

And Atterbury paid a similar tribute in 1690:

He undoubtedly stands first in the List of Refiners, and for ought I know, last too; for I...