either have been unknown, would have been despised, or would have corrected his style.  Boileau applauded him, but it was in his first satires, at a time when the taste of that great poet was not yet formed.  He was young, and in an age when persons form a judgment of men from their reputation, and not from their writings.  Besides, Boileau was very partial both in his encomiums and his censures.  He applauded Segrais, whose works nobody reads; he abused Quinault, whose poetical pieces every one has got by heart; and is wholly silent upon La Fontaine.  Waller, though a better poet than Voiture, was not yet a finished poet.  The graces breathe in such of Waller’s works as are writ in a tender strain; but then they are languid through negligence, and often disfigured with false thoughts.  The English had not in his time attained the art of correct writing.  But his serious compositions exhibit a strength and vigour which could not have been expected from the softness and effeminacy of his other pieces.  He wrote an elegy on Oliver Cromwell, which, with all its faults, is nevertheless looked upon as a masterpiece.  To understand this copy of verses you are to know that the day Oliver died was remarkable for a great storm.  His poem begins in this manner:—­

   “Il n’est plus, s’en est fait, soumettons nous au sort,
   Le ciel a signale ce jour par des tempetes,
   Et la voix des tonnerres eclatant sur nos tetes
   Vient d’annoncer sa mort.

   “Par ses derniers soupirs il ebranle cet ile;
   Cet ile que son bras fit trembler tant de fois,
   Quand dans le cours de ses exploits,
   Il brisoit la tete des Rois,
   Et soumettoit un peuple a son joug seul docile.

   “Mer tu t’en es trouble; O mer tes flots emus
   Semblent dire en grondant aux plus lointains rivages
   Que l’effroi de la terre et ton maitre n’est plus.

   “Tel au ciel autrefois s’envola Romulus,
   Tel il quitta la Terre, au milieu des orages,
   Tel d’un peuple guerrier il recut les homages;
   Obei dans sa vie, sa mort adore,
   Son palais fut un Temple,” &c.

* * * * *

   “We must resign! heaven his great soul does claim
   In storms as loud as his immortal fame;
   His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,
   And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile: 
   About his palace their broad roots are tost
   Into the air; so Romulus was lost! 
   New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,
   And from obeying fell to worshipping. 
   On OEta’s top thus Hercules lay dead,
   With ruined oaks and pines about him spread. 
   Nature herself took notice of his death,
   And, sighing, swelled the sea with such a breath,
   That to remotest shores the billows rolled,
   Th’ approaching fate of his great ruler told.”

   WALLER.