. . .osed when “he, for age, could neither read nor write,” are not inferior to the effusions of his youth.

Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a little land, at Coleshill; and said “he should be glad to die, like the stag, where he was roused.”  This, however, did not happen.  When he was at Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid: he went to Windsor, where Sir Charles Scarborough then attended the king, and requested him, as both a friend and physician, to tell him “what that swelling meant.”  “Sir,” answered Scarborough, “your blood will run no longer.”  Waller repeated some lines of Virgil, and went home to die.

As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of his faith in Christianity.  It now appea. . . Read More