aduaunce with lustye crakes
His tryple gorge be hong with mane
shagg hearye, rustie, blacke:
"Wber Ixions carkas linked fast
the whyrlyng wheele doth racke,
And rowleth styll vppon him selfe :
whear as full oft in vayne
Much toyle is lost, (the tottryng stone
down tomblyng backe agayne)
Whear growing guts the gredie gripe
do gnaw with rauenyng bitts.
Wher parched vp with burning thurst
amydd the waues he sytts,
And gapes to catche the fietyng flood
with hungry chapps be guylde,
That paies his painefull punyshment,
whose feast the gods defylde:
Yet that olde man so stept in yeares
at length by tract of tyme,
How great a parte belongcs to me
and porcion of his cryme ?
Account we all the grysly ghostes,
wiiom gyltie found of ill,
The Gnosian iudge in plutoes pytts
doth tosse in tormentes styll :
Tkyesles J in dryrye dedes
wyll far surmount the rest."
Besides the tragedy just noticed, Studlcy translated the
Medea Hyppolitm, and Hercules Oeleus, which were in-
cluded
//
eluded in Newton's collection, 158 1, but which were
probably printed separately, although no copies of them
have been discovered. His other works were
1. Two tributes, in Latin verses, " in obitum clarissimi
v'iri Nicolai Carri," appended to ' ' Demos thenis Gracorum
Oralorum Principis, Olynthiacce orationes tres, & Phi-
lippicce quatuor, e Greco in Latinum conuersce, a JSico-
lao Carro." &c. 4to. by Denham, 1571. The second
of these, as being the shortest, I shall transcribe.
" Quaerenti nuper cur sic Cantabria* fleret,
Et toties clamet : spes mea, Carre, vale :
Talia respondit: gemo memet vulnere laesam,
IJum mihi Car periit, %sip mihi manca cadit."
2. The Pageant of Popes, contayninge the lyues of
all the Bishops of Rome, from the beginninge of them
to the yeare of Grace 1555, &c. Shelving manyc
straunge, notorious, outragious and tragicall partes^
played by them the like whereof hath not els bin hearde:
both pleasant and profitable for this age. Written in
Latin by Maister Bale, and now Englished with son-
drye additions by I. S. Anno 1574.. 4to by Marshe.
It is dedicated to Thomas, Earl of Sussex, and possesses
some lines to the reader, by T. R. gentleman, which give
a curious description of the Pope and Antichrist,
P. B.
f
An Italian Grammer Written in latin by Scipio
Lentvlo a Ncapolitaine and turned in En g lis he by
H. G. Imprinted at London by Thomas Vautroullier
dwelling in the Blacke frieres. 1575. Oct. pp. 155.
Dedicated " to the right vertvovs Mystres Mary, and Mys-
tres Francys Berkeley," daughters oi Henry Lord Berkley,
whose favourable acceptance is sought although " rudely at-
tired with this Englishe habit." Ending, " so humble 1 take
my leaue, the 4 of December, 15/4. Yours vvholy at com-
maundement, Henry Grantham" j- * *
Carr was Greek Professor at Cambridge.
s app
Chronological
t Probably the first edition ; two of later dates appear in Her-
bert.
378
% Chronological List of the Works, in verse and
prose, of George Wither.
[concluded from p. 32.]
87. " The grateful Acknowledgment of a late trimming
Regulator. Humbly presented to that honest and
worthy Country-Gentleman who is come lately to
Town, and stiles himself by the name of Multum in
parvo. With a most strange and wonderful prophecy
taken out of ' Britain* Genious :' written in the time
of the late wars by that famous and divine poet of our
age, Captain George Wither/' Ver. 4to. 1688.*
This can only be ranged within the pale of Wither's
publications, from containing a reprint of a part of his
" Prosopopoeia Britannica," which begins
" When here a Scot shall think his throne to set."
The following titles of productions not printed, arc
mostly recorded in Wither's own Catalogue.
88. " An Apology to the Lords of the Council, in justi-
fication of the reproof of vices in his poems."
89. ' v A Treatise of antient Hieroglyphicks, with their
various significations." A MS lost.
90. "The Pursuit of Happiness : being a character of
the extravagancy of the author's affeetions and passions
in his youth." Prose.
91. " Kiddles, Songs, and Epigrams."
93. " A Discourse concerning the plantations of Ulster
* In the following year was printed " Withers Redivivus : in a
small new-years gift, pro rcge et grcge, to his Royal Highness the
Prince of Orange. Wherein is a most strange and wondeiful plot,
lately found and discovered, and recommended to all the imposing
members of the Church of England ; to he by them acted, as part
of their Lent-confession: viz. to all Roman Catholick priests and
Jesuits of persecutingprinciples and profession. With the arraign-
ment and tri.d of Innocent the XTth, present pope of Rome. Re-
fused last Lent to be licensed, by reason of the matter therein con-
tained. By T. P. Printed in the year 1689." 4to.
In this, the medley manner of some of Wither's pamphlets is
aptly mimicked.
in
379
in Ireland; with pre-conjectures of what consequents
would probably ensue." Prose. (Wood says this was
printed.)
93. "The Dutchess."
94. " Domestick Devotions."
95. " A Funeral Elegie."
96. " A tract of Usury; wherein lending for increase,
which is forbidden in scripture, is distinguished from
that which is lawful."
97. " Familiar Epistles." Prose, lost.
98. "The Author's Confession of his Faith both in fun-
damentals and in relation to most points controverted
by men of several judgements in religion."
99. "A precatory Meditation and soliloquy with God,
on the behalf of his children and posterity."
100. " A Discourse to a Friend, touching the consola-
tions in close imprisonment."
101. " Vaticinium poeticum." In Verse.*
102. *? Caveat Emptor." In Prose -f-
103. " Carmen Ternarium Semicynicum."
104. " Know Thyself." In Verse,
105. The true state of the Cairse betwixt the King and
Parliament." In Prose. Mislaid or lost.
T06. " The Delinquents' Purgation."
107. " Three Grains of Frankincense." In Verse. J
108.
* This, says Wood, was reprinted in Fragments. Prophetica .- but
Wood was certainly mistaken.
f The following allusion occurs in "Fides Anglicana." " This
remonstrant, and many more, are (among other frequent upbraid-
ings and provocations) jeered v.i<h this untimely ind unsawury
caution, caveat emptor . which unth obliquely a wor^e re.lec-
tion upon venders than buyers in their con lition : implying rather
ca - -eo.ni -Tuiditorcs, in regard it is a ca-veut to be givm 'oeiorc-hand,
&c."
+ Tlii v.'ss printed in i6ci, 3nd had for it. - - fuller title " Tl;ree
grains of Spiritual Frankincense infused into three hymnes of
praise.'" It forms "a public Thanksgiving ior tht last Oay of the
late King's [Charles the First's] life, andtr.e iirst of England's re-
suming tier liberty " and was written as ait earnest desire to per-
form somewhat waich might shew tbe author thankful to God,
and to those friends, by whose mercy he and his family hnd been
preserved from perishing under some hue pressures. The dedica-
tion
3 8o
108. " A Declaration in the person of Oliver Cromwell
given into his own hand, and tending to the settling
of such a Government as he never intended." In
Prose. *
109. " A private address to the said Oliver, in prose and
verse; offering things pertinent to his consideration,
into his hand, sealed up. f
no. " Thepersecution of the Tongue among Brethren. ";
in. "A Legacy to my Children, and an Elegy." In
Verse. (See N 81 of this list.)
112. " The History of the Pestilence ; or proceedings of
Justice and Mercy." This, says Wood, goes about
in MS. It may be supposed the same with
" Britain's Remembrancer ." Perhaps a selection
from it.
Occasional verses by Wither were printed with
Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, 1613, and 1 616 ; Dray-
ton's Polyolbion, Part II. 1622 ; Smith's Virginia, 1626 ;
Hayman's Quodlibets, 1629; Wastell's Micro-Biblion,
1629; Butler's Feminine Monarchy, 1632; Blaxton's
Usurer, 1634; Carter's relation of an expedition into
Kent and Sussex, 1650. A Latin poem, signed G. W.
and affixed to P. Fisher's Marston-Moor.mav also belong
to him. fn Mr. Pinkerton's preface to Ancient Scotish
poems, t 786, he speaks of pieces in the Bannatyne MS.
by Hey wood and Wither : from his Appendix it appears
that the latter can only claim his celebrated song, put
tion is addressed to Bradshaw. W.Ford, of Manchester, had a copy-
in his Catalogue for 181 1, which is the only one I have traced.
The subject must have made the book very scarce, and disgrace-
fully marks the time-serving versatility of Wither's pen, while it
serves to account for many of his subsequent sufferings.
* This is spoken of in his "Cordial of Confection " 1659, as
having been shown to Oliver Cromwell, " to direct him how to
settle a righteous government.'"
f In his Fragmenta Propheiica, p. 102, Wither speaks of several
Addresses made to Oliver and his son Richard, while they exercised
the supreme power, " amounting to above two quires of paper ;"
in which were many seasonable precautions and remembrances to
them tendered with a sober boldness. But these being delivered
into their own hands sealed up, and not imprinted, were omitted
to be extracted from in the general review of his writings.
X Mentioned in his " Brief Defence, fifr." Fide supra p. 21.
into
38i
into the Scotish idiom : " Sail a woman's goodness
move," &c. Under Faithorne's head of Noah Bridges,
i66r, are four English verses, signed G. W. which
Granger interprets Geo. Wither. Mr. Bindley has a MS.
poemby Chr. Brooke on the death of Sir Arthur Chiches-
ter, with verses, prefixed by Wither. (See Brit. Bill.
P- 2 37-)
Many were the encomiums bestowed on Wither by his
contemporaries, and many have been the sarcasms vented
since.* His poetry and his politics rendered him emi-
nently
* See among others a snarling one from the Audio Davisiana,
printed in Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1795. Ritson says, that by his
long, dull, puritanical rhimes, Wither acquired the name and
character of the English Bavius : but this title I have not traced
beyond himseif. He mollifies it by adding " his more juvenile
pieces would not discredit the best writer of his age." Eng. Songs,
Vol. I. p. 127. Walter Harte, in his Essay on Satire, character-
izes him as " Fanatic Wither, fairfd for rhimes and sighs."
Wither says, in his Triple Paradox, " my own phanatick brain
is cause of all whereof I do complain." But I know not what the
word sighs alludes to, unless it be his tract entitled ' Sighs for the
Pitchers," (see p. 25 of this volume.) The following satiric ex-
tract from Shepperd's Mercurius Elencticus, No. 19, refers to
the Carmen Eucharisticon of Wither, printed in the same year
(164.9) anc ^ noticed in British Bibliographer, I. 317.
*' At Westminster (Sept. 3, 164.9) they are very lazie, and have
done very little more of publique concernment : but as itappeares,
George Withers has beene very much busied in composing a "Hymne
of Praises" for their great deliverance and victory against Or-
mond ; which hee presented most of the members with on Tuesday
last, (in hopes they would have sung it the day after, being the
thanksgiving day appointed) wherein hee has flattered the Saints
very artificially, in hopes to get his arreares. But whether it take
or not, I'm sure hee has shew'd himselfe a compleat hypocrite, a
dissembling knave ; as any man that reads his " Campo-Musae"
and compares it with this '* Oblation," may easily perceive: his.
verses prance it in this manner.
" Withers, a dull and drunken sot,
A rustique-rymer o're a pot,
Whose barren genius hath the rot,
Hath writ a " 'Thank -Oblation."
And though his " Campo-Musae" sings
His love and loyaltie to kings,
Yet now hee calleth those vaine things
To this brave Reformation.
Now honest Taylor, I commit
This brazen, undigested bit,
Unto thy more deserving wit
T' examine And retort :
And
38a
nently obnoxious to both. But a pretty fair estimate of
his pretensions to literary distinction, and of the slights
his works experienced, is given in the following extract
from " Bibliotheca, or the Modern Library." *
" Melodious Wither, by himself,
In learned tatters bends a shelf,
Though none so base as to dispute
His title to a better suit.
He sadly moans, expos' d to air,
His cover thin and livery bare :
Grinning with envy to behold
His meaner rivals shine in gold.
Thy dying Muse, when urg'd by fate,
Might sure have cla ; m'd to lie in state:
Though living" scorn'd and never read,
Like other things achnir'd when dead i"
And shew ns how the doting foole
Hath dabled in a dirty pooie,
To give the Common-wealth a stoole,
And we will thank thee ior't."
Baxter, in the preface to his " Poetical Fragments, i6Si,also
terms Wittier " a rustikt poet, who had been very acceptable to
some for his prophecies, and to others for his plain country-
honesty." To Sheppard, among several contemporary poet-
asters, Wither may be thought to glance in the following passages
of his " Triple Paradox," 1661.
" The scoffs and jeers cast on me by the rimes
Of some reputed poets in these times,
Have been my great advantage ; &x.
Were I but as ambitious of that name
A Poet, as they are, and think I am j
It might a little vex me, when I hear
How often, in their pamphlets, me they jeer,
Because, truth seasonably I convey
To such as need it in a homely way :
Best pleasing unto those who do net care
To crack hard shells in which no kernels are ;
Or for strong lines, in which is little found
Save an affected phrase and empty sound.
But I do read them with a smiling pity
To frnde them to be wicked who are witty.
At their detractions I do not repine;
Their poems I esteem as they do mine."
* See Nichols' selection of Miscellany Poems, III. 34.
Aubrev.
3*3
Aubrey, in his Auctarium Vitarum, in the Ashmolean
Museum, has recorded few particulars of our author that
were not transmitted by Wood, from whose Athena: the
principal data were derived, in the able memoir presented
to the public in N I. of the Bibliographer- In what
society he studied while at Oxford,* Aubrey, by leaving
a blank, does not appear to have ascertained. Of James
Wither (the son of John Wither of Manidown in the
county of Southampton, who died of a decline in 1627*
at the age of 28, being a Master of Arts and Fellow of
New College) a memorial is placed within the cloisters
near New-College Chapel. This probably was a near
relation of the poet, f But whether the latter was on the
same foundation, Mr. John Gutch, who is preparing a
Selection from the Juvenilia, &c. will be best enabled to
state, from his own early residence and present family-
connexions in the same university. At college Wither
probably continued not long, being called away from it
when he should have sought " a calling" there : \ and
in some of his early pieces he designates himself "of the
Society of Lincolns Inn." But the law he followed not
as a profession : || for indeed at the time he ranked him-
self
* Wither, in describing the occasion which gave rise to his
Satires, speaks thus of his matriculation, and of" the little studious
advantage he derived from a college life.
" I could not with our idle students say
For an excuse, / was ill-enter" d : no,
There yet are many know it was not so.
And therefore, sit Li I came no wiser thence,
I must confesse it was my negligence."
f In 1650 Robert Wither published " a description of the
Grand Signor's Seraglio." I know not whether this writer was
of the poet's family.
t At first be describes himself to have been an idler, till feeling
ashamed to find " other little dandiprats," surpass him in scho-
lastic exercises, he waded through sophistry, looked into ethical
philosophy, superficially studied natural philosophy, went on to
matters metaphysical, and at last became a wrangler.
He makes Fortune say to him on his return to a rural home:
" If wrangling in the schooles be such a sport,
Go to your Ploydens in the bines of Court."' Satire I.
|1 It has not been mentioned either by Dr. Percy or Mr. Warton,
that
384
self of that learned society, his school of study seems to
have been the Marshalsea-prison : on his release from
which, psalmodic divinity appears principally to have
exercised his pen. The period of his marriage I do not
trace, but the valuable object of his choice was made
known by Aubrey. In *' Topographical Miscellanies,"
1792, Vol. I it is queried whether he did not marry
Katherine Chester of Woolvesley, near Winchester, in
1657. This was not likely, because he describes his
wife's corporeal beauties as " worn out with age," in
1661, only fourteen years after their supposed union : in
the next place we learn from himself, that the name of
his wife was Elizabeth; * and we lastly gather from
Aubrey, that he married Elizabeth Emerson of South
Lambeth, Surrey, y for whom he evidently cherished
a sincere conjugal attachment ;t and who, in return,
religiously
that the Rev. Wm. BedUvell was enabled to publish that curious
mockery of romance called " The Tournament of Tottenham,'''
in 1631, from a MS. communicated by Wither, and thus acknow-
ledged in an epistle to the reader. " It is now seven or eight
ye?.rs since I came to the sight of the copy, and that by the means
of the worthy, and my much honoured good friend, M. Ge.
Withers ; of whom also now at length I have obtained the use of
the same. And because the verse was then by him, a man of so
exquisite judgement in this kinde of learning, much commended, as
also for the thing it selfe; I thought it worth while to transcribe
it, and to make it public," Sec. See the poem particularly noticed
by Warton,in Vol. III. of his History, and printed entire by Dr.
Percy, in Vol. II. of his Reliques, with variations in the later
editions from Harl. MS. 5396. " Wither's poems" are entered
among the books principally made use of by Joshua Poole in the
<ompilation of his English Parnassus, 1657.
* " Dear Betty, how inhumanly opprest
Art thou ? and oh ! how is my soul distrest,
Now I here think upon thy high desart,
And how discomfortably left thou art !''
A Composure , &c. 1661.
f See note in British Bibliographer, Vol. I. p. 4.28.
} In the poem just before quoted, he says of her :
" A better woman, mistress, mother, 'wife,
I never saw, nor shall see, during life.
To me, to mine, and our poor neighbourhood,
She, in the stead of a physitian stood :
And
385
religiously performed her matrimonial vow, and shared
his wayward fate " in sickness and in health."* Through-
out several pages in his " Crums and Scraps, "f he speaks
of her with becoming fondness and passionate concern;
bemoans her alarming indisposition, and attests her long-
tried worth; details repeated instances of their mutual
confidence, and with a pardonable and sometimes pleas-
ing minuteness, indulges in a grateful retrospect of her
piety, fidelity and true affection, of her prudential manage-
ment in domestic concerns, and of strict propriety in all
the relative duties of life. His prayer for her recovery i?
breathed with devotional fervour, though with the most
entire resignation to the Divine will ; and our author, in
this part of his character at least, deserves to be remem-
bered with respect, with benevolence, and with praise.
Wither had six children, two of whom were living in
1661, and both married : but one daughter alone sur-
vived
And that no duty might be left undone,
Martha and Mary she Still join'd in one.
She could speak well, yet readier was to hear ;
Exceeding pleasant, and yet as severe
As Cato," &c.
Another tribute to her occurs in his Meditations on the Deca-
logue, Canto 5.
* { the mercy which this place affords,
In age and sickness, had been naked boards,
An;! stones for bread ; had not my Wife, by giving
What charity bestow'd to keep her living,
Prevented for a week whit was design'd, &c.'"
Verses written in the Tower, when be was a close prisoner.
f See an extract from these pages in British Bibliographer, I. 429.
X This appears from his own Epitaph composed by himself in
1664-5-
" Beside the issue of my brain,
I had six children, whereof twain
Did live, when we divided were."
Wither gives an indistinct and quaint intimation that thr
family of Hunt or Huntley, (which was ennobled by a pedigree)
intermarried with his own son and daughter:
" And their two surnames, being joyn'd together.
Denominate my grandson Hunt 1/ Wither/'
"vol n. c c Yet
3 8<*
vived him, who became the publisher of his meditation?
on the Decalogue. #
He comphins in his " Speculum Speculativu?n," and
elsewhere, of the thankless office he had assumed as
" Britain's Remembrancer," and some of his partizans
or " eminent persons," f as he denominates them, en-
deavoured to supply the unprofitableness of his volunteer
Yet his daughter in ifiJ>8 signs her initials E. B. In the course
of twenty- seven years, however, she might have married again
Wither, in his " Sacrifice of praise and prayer/ 1 i66r, from which
the preceding couplets are extracted, thus proceeds to speak of
the wedded union of his two children.
" Oh ! let thy so uniting them together,
Make them a mutual blessing to each others
And by considVing with due thankfulness
What thou hast done for me in my distiess,
Make both my children and their whole descent
With thy good pleasure at all times content/'
Again, in the same " Sacrifice or thank -oblation ;"
" What my children suffer'd, when they had
No means of comfort, and thereby grew sad,
Thou didst for that a remedy provide,
By making them a bridegroome and a bride,
To my good liking and their own content,
Without self-seeking or disparagement. "
In an address to his dearly beloved children, written from New.
gate, Feb. i $, 1662, he recommends them to be obedient to their
mother, ?ince the enjoyment of her company would more than re-
compense the loss of l.is; God having endowed her with so much
maternal prudence and love.
* See British Bibliographer, II. 30.
f " Many years after that grand pestilence in 1625, during
which I wrote my book called " BritaiTs Remembrancer," and
after publication thereof: some eminent persons, having respect
thereunto, endeavoured of their own accord (without my seeking)
that the office of their (lity-Remeinbranctr, then void, might have
been confencd on me: which motion though it took not effect,
was by me as thankfully taken as it was lovingly intended." (A
seasonable Mem to the City of London, 1665, p. z8.) Here, as in
other places. Wither wishes to convey, that worldly advantage
was not of his seeking. From the Commons Journals, 20 Oct.
164.7, it seems that the Committee of the Navy Accounts was di-
rected to consider of some fitting convenient place for him in the
Custom House of Dover, but did not fulfil their directions.
vocation
37
vocation by procuring for him the office of City-Re-
membrancer ; but their endeavours failed. Had they
succeeded, it is not impossible that he might have be-
come a sober citizen for life, instead of successively va-
cillating from a parliamentarian commander to a com-
monwealth commissioner, from a satirist to a soothsayer,
and from a libellous fanatic to a political poetaster. Au-
brey tells us, in his brief biography of Wither, * that
*' he would make verses as fast as he could write them :
he was an early observator of quicquid agunt homines :
he had a strange sagacity and foresight into mundane
affairs: and though he was an easy rymer and no good
poet, he was a good vates." The pertinacious assumption
of this latter character rendered him utterly indifferent
to the preservation of the former; and as poetical celebrity
can neither be acquired nor sustained without much ear-
nestness and effort, Wither, by neglecting to cultivate
that purer vein of poesy with which by nature he was
imbued, has failed to procure for himself an appropriate
niche in the temple of " aye-enduring fame." By some
prejudiced persons indeed he has been regarded as a mere
seditious pamphleteer, with whom to write and to rail
were nearly synonymous. Hence Echard records in his
History, " This month (May 1667) died Mr. Geo.
Withers, poet: under the name of verse and prediction
he undertook to revile all governments -f- and governors,
and
* MSS. in Mus. Ashmol. Oxon.
f It may nor here be too much out of place to supply the fol-
lowing notices of Wither's concerns with the Parliament, from the
Journals of the House of Commons, Jan. r, 1650.
" Col. Dove reports from the Committee to whom the petition
of George Wither Esq. W3S referred, theopiuion of the said Com-