These verses of Halifax were intended as a compli-
ment to his hostess : —

Vandyke had colours, softness, fire and art,
When the fair Sunderland inflam'd his heart
Waller had numbers, fancy, wit and fire.
And Sacharissa was his fond desire.
Why then at Althorp seem her charms to faint
In these sweet numbers and that glowing paint ?
This happy seat a fairer mistress warms ;
This shining offspring hath eclips'd her charms :
The different beauties in one face we find
Soft Amoret with brightest Sacharissa join'd
As high as Nature reach'd, their art could soar ;
But she ne'er made a finished piece before.
One of the older literary rakes, probably, indeed,
no longer rakish when Rochester was at court, was
the just mentioned Edmund Waller, a man of the age
of sixty-two when Rochester first went to Whitehall.
If age alone gave a claim to the first place after
royalty in our portrait gallery, it should have been
given to Waller and Davenant, who were born in
the same year (1605) and died within a year of
each other (1687- 1688); but although both figured
at the court of Charles II., the memory of each
is more connected with the court of Charles I.
One of these old rhymsters professed admiration



AND OTHER LITERARY RAKES 103

for the works of the other ; for Waller wrote to
Davenant : —

Man is thy theme ; his virtue or his rage.
Drawn to the life in each elaborate page.
