Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/129

 demonstration of the cilio-spinal centre was the result of work done jointly with Professor Budge, and is described in the ‘Comptes Rendus’ for October 1851. The function of the ganglion on the posterior root of each spinal nerve is published in the ‘Comptes Rendus’ (xxxv. 524). ‘The Microscopic Observations on the Perforation of the Capillaries by the Corpuscles of the Blood, and on the Origin of Mucus and Pus,’ appeared in the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ for November 1846, while the ‘Microscopic Investigations on Hail’ were printed in the same journal for July and August 1846 and March 1847.



WALLER, EDMUND (1606–1687), poet, the eldest son of Robert Waller and Anne, daughter of Griffith Hampden, was born on 3 March 1606 at the Manor-house, Coleshill, since 1832 included in Buckinghamshire, but then in Hertfordshire. Like his contemporaries, Sir [q. v.] and Sir [q. v.], he was descended from [q. v.] He was baptised on 9 March 1606 at Amersham (Amersham Parish Register), but his father seems early in his life to have sold his property at Coleshill, and to have gone to Beaconsfield, with which place the name of Waller will always be connected. ‘He was bred under several ill, dull, and ignorant schoolmasters, till he went to Mr. Dobson at Wickham, who was a good schoolmaster, and had been an Eaton schollar’, Brief Lives). His father died on 26 Aug. 1616, leaving the care of the future poet's education to his mother, who sent him to Eton, and thence to Cambridge, where he was admitted a fellow-commoner of King's College, 22 March 1620. He had there for his tutor a relative who is said to have been a very learned man, but there is no record of Waller having taken a degree, and on 3 July 1622 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn (Lincoln's Inn Admission Register).

He was, says Clarendon, ‘nursed in parliaments,’ and, according to his own statement, he was but sixteen when he first sat in the house. The inscription on his monument mentions Agmondesham or Amersham as his first constituency; but there is some difficulty with regard to this, as the right of Amersham to return members was in abeyance till the last parliament of James I (12 Feb. 1624), and it has been suggested that Waller was permitted to sit for the borough in the parliament which met on 16 Jan. 1621, without the privilege of taking part in the debates. In the parliament which was dissolved by the death of James I he sat for Ilchester, a seat which he obtained by the resignation of Nathaniel Tomkins, who had married his sister Cecilia; he sat for Chipping Wycombe in the second parliament of Charles I, and represented Amersham in the third and fourth. Waller appears to have first attracted the attention of the court by securing the hand and fortune of Anne, the only daughter and heiress of one John Banks, a citizen and mercer, who died on 9 Sept. 1630. The marriage was celebrated at St. Margaret's, Westminster, 5 July 1631. The lady was at the time a ward of the court of aldermen, and it was only after some difficulty and the payment of a fine out of her portion that the direct influence of the king enabled the poet to purge his offence in having carried off the lady without the consent of her guardians. After his marriage Waller appears to have retired with his wife to his house at Beaconsfield. His father left him a considerable fortune, and this together with the sum, said to have been about 8,000l., which he received with his wife, probably made him, with the exception of Rogers, the richest poet known to English literature. His eldest son, Robert, born at Beaconsfield on 18 May 1633, had Thomas Hobbes for his tutor, and was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, 15 June 1648, but does not appear, however, to have reached manhood. Mrs. Waller died in giving birth to a daughter who was baptised on 23 Oct. 1634. After her death the poet is said to have taken [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Winchester, to live with him, and under his influence to have devoted himself more closely to letters. By him Waller is said by Clarendon to have been introduced to the ‘Club’ which gathered round Lucius Cary, lord Falkland, and it is probable that it was from the members of this society that he received his first recognition as a poet. In or about the end of 1635 his name first became connected with that of the lady whom he has immortalised as Sacharissa [see ], a name formed, ‘as he used to say pleasantly,’ from saccharum, sugar. The lady appears to have treated his suit with indifference, and the very elaborate letter which he wrote upon the occasion of her marriage affords no evidence of passion on his side, in spite of Aubrey's village gossip to the contrary. 