t worth the while
A Swede or Russ to reconcile.
For where there is no store of wealth,
Souls are not worth the charge of health.
Spain in America had two designs:
To sell their gospel for their mines:
For had the Mexicans been poor,
No Spaniard twice had landed on their shore.
'Twas gold the Catholic religion planted,
Which, had they wanted gold, they still had wanted.

Mr. Dryden[3] and Mr. Addison[4] have joined in giving testimony
against our author, as to the choice of his verse, which they condemn
as boyish and being apt to degenerate into the doggrel; but while they
censure his verse, they applaud his matter, and Dryden observes, that
had he chose any other verse, he would even then have excelled; as we
say of a court favourite, that whatever his office be, he still makes
it uppermost, and most beneficial to him.

We cannot close the life of this great man, without a reflection on
the degeneracy of those times, which suffered him to languish in
obscurity; and though he had done more against the Puritan interest,
by exposing it to ridicule, than thousands who were rioting at court
with no pretensions to favour, yet he was never taken notice of, nor
had any calamity redressed, which leaves a stain on those who then
ruled, that never can be obliterated. A minister of state seldom fails
to reward a court tool, and a man of pleasure pays his instruments for
their infamy, and what character must that ministration bear, who
allow wit, loyalty and virtue to pass neglected, and, as Cowley
pathetically expresses it,

'In that year when manna rained on all, why
should the muses fleece be only dry.'

The following epigram is not unworthy [of] a place here.

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.

* * * * *

EDMUND WALLER 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, th