Whilst Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
  No gen’rous patron would a dinner give;
  But lo behold! when dead, the mould’ring dust,
  Rewarded with a monumental bust! 
  A poet’s fate, in emblem here is shewn,
  He ask’d for bread, and he received—­a stone.

Footnotes:  1.  Life of Butler, p 6. 2.  Posthumous Works of Wycherly, published by Mr. Theobald. 3.  Juv.  Ded. 4.  Spect.  No. 6.  Vol. i.

* * * * *

EdmundWaller Esq;

Was descended of a family of his name in Buckinghamshire, a younger branch of the Wallers of Kent.  He was born March 3, 1605 at Coleshill, which gives Warwickshire the honour of his birth.  His father dying when he was very young, the care of his education fell to his mother, who sent him to Eton School, according to the author of his life, but Mr. Wood says, ’that he was mostly educated in grammaticals under one Dobson, minister of Great Wycombe in Bucks, who had been educated in Eton school,’ without mentioning that Mr. Waller had been at all at Eton school:  after he had acquired grammar learning, he was removed to King’s college in Cambridge, and it is manifest that he must have been extremely assiduous in his studies, since he acquired so fine a taste of the ancients, in so short a time, for at sixteen or seventeen years of age, he was chosen into the last Parliament of King James I. and served as Burgess for Agmondesham.

In the year 1623, when Prince Charles nearly escaped being cast away in the road of St. Andre, coming from Spain, Mr. Waller wrote a Poem on that occasion, at an age when, generally speaking, persons of the acutest parts just begin to shew themselves, and at a time when the English poetry had scarce any grace in it.  In the year 1628 he addressed a Poem to his Majesty, on his hearing the news of the duke of Buckingham’s death, which, with the former, procured him general admiration:  harmony of numbers being at that time so great a novelty, and Mr. Waller having, at once, so polished and refined versification, it is no wonder that he enjoyed the felicity of an universal applause.  These poems recommended him to court-favour, and rendered him dear to persons of the best taste and distinction that then flourished.  A Writer of his life observes, as a proof of his being much caressed by people of the first reputation, that he was one of the famous club, of which the great lord Falkland, Sir Francis Wainman, Mr. Chillingworth, Mr. Godolphin, and other eminent men were members.  These were the immortals of that age, and to be associated with them, is one of the highest encomiums which can possibly be bestowed, and exceeds the most laboured strain of a panegyrist.