After this storm had subsided, Mr. Waller travelled into France, where he continued several years.  He took over his lady’s jewels to support him, and lived very hospitably at Paris, and except that of lord Jermyn, afterwards earl of St. Alban’s, who was the Queen of England’s prime minister when she kept her court there, there was no English table but Mr. Waller’s; which was so costly to him, that he used to say, ‘he was at last come to the Rump Jewel.’  Upon his return to England, such was the unsteadiness of his temper, he sided with those in power, particularly the Lord Protector, with whom he lived in great intimacy as a companion, tho’ he seems not to have acted for him.  He often declared that he found Cromwell very well acquainted with the Greek and Roman story; and he frequently took notice, that in the midst of their discourse, a servant has come to tell him, that such and such attended; upon which Cromwell would rise and stop them; talking at the door, where Mr. Waller could over-hear him say, ’The lord will reveal, the lord will help,’ and several such expressions; which when he returned to Mr. Waller, he excused, saying, ’Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men after their own way.’

In 1654 he wrote a panegyric on Oliver Cromwell, as he did a poem on his death in 1658.  At the restoration he was treated with great civility by King Charles ii, who always made him one of his party in his diversions at the duke of Buckingham’s, and other places, and gave him a grant of the provostship of Eaton-College; tho’ that grant proved of no effect.  He sat in several Parliaments after the restoration, and wrote a panegyric upon his Majesty’s return, which however, was thought to fall much short of that which he before had wrote on Cromwell.  The King one day asked him in raillery, ’How is it Waller, that you wrote a better encomium on Cromwell than on me.’  May it please your Majesty, answered the bard, with the most admirable fineness, ‘Poets generally succeed best in fiction.’  Mr. Waller continued in the full vigour of his genius to the end of his life; his natural vivacity bore up against his years, and made his company agreeable to the last; which appears from the following little story.

King James ii having ordered the earl of Sunderland to desire Mr. Waller to attend him one afternoon; when he came, the King carried him into his closet, and there asked him how he liked such a picture?  ‘Sir, says Mr. Waller, my eyes are dim, and I know not whose it is.’  The King answered, ‘It is the Princess of Orange;’ and says Mr. Waller, ‘she is like the greatest woman in the world.’  ’Whom do you call so, said the King,’ ‘Queen Elizabeth, said he.’  ’I wonder, Mr. Waller, replied the King, you should think so; but I must confess, she had a wise council;’ and Sir, said Mr. Waller, ’did you ever know a Fool chuse a wise one.’