Though they as a trifle leave thee,

Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee;
Though thou be to them a scorn,

That to nought but earth are born

Let my life no longer be,

Than I am in love with thee.

The following extract from A Prisoner's Lay, is a very beautiful and ingenious adaptation of Scripture to his own peculiar case *. It was, indeed, good for him to suffer, if he could thus gather consolation in the midst of sorrow, and, untroubled by the noises of the world without, surrender up his mind to holy reflections :

First think, my soul, if I have foes
That take a pleasure in my care,
And to procure these outward woes
Have thus enwrapt me unaware;

Thou should'st by much more careful be,
Since greater foes lay wait for thee.

By my late hopes that now are crost,
Consider those that firmer be,
And make the freedom I have lost
A means that may remember thee.

Had Christ not thy Redeemer been,
What horrid state had'st thou been in!

Or when through me thou seest a man
Condemned unto a mortal death,
How sad he looks, how pale, how wan,
Drawing, with fear, his panting breath;
Think if in that such grief thou see,
How sad will "Go ye cursed" be!

* Wither sweetly alludes to the origin of this hymn :

He that first taught his music such a strain,
Was that sweet shepherd, who, until a king,
Kept sheep upon the honey-milky plain
That is enricht by Jordan's watering:
He in his troubles eased the body's pains,
By measures raised to the soul's ravishing;
And his sweet numbers, only most divine,
Gave the first being to this song of mine.

Shepherd's Hunting, eclogue i.

These iron chains, these bolts of steel,
Which often poor offenders grind;
The wants and cares which they do feel
May bring some greater things to mind.
For by their grief thou shalt do well
To think upon the pains of Hell.

Again, when he that feared to die
(Past hope) doth see his pardon brought,
Read but the Joy that's in his eye,
And then convey it to thy thought;

Then think between thy heart and thee,
How glad will "Come ye blessed” be!

The Shepherd's Hunting is divided into five eclogues; the fourth is dedicated to "his truly beloved, loving friend, Mr. William Browne," and forms the most poetical part of the composition. It is written in that playful lyric measure, in which no writer, not even Milton in L'Allegro, has surpassed Wither. He said truly, in "Fair Virtue," that the measure "liketh" him. The hepta-syllabic metre had been already rendered popular by Fletcher in his Faithful Shepherdess. The period when this exquisite pastoral tragi-comedy, as it is styled by the author, was composed, is not precisely known; but that it was produced and acted before 1611 is evident, from the circumstance of its being praised by Davies in his Scourge of Folly, published in that year. It was most likely printed soon after its first representation, which was very unfavourably received. Ben Jonson called it "a murdered poem," and insinuates that its ill success was attributable to its purity and support of virtue. Italian pastoral poetry had been for some time cultivated in this country. The Amyntas of Tasso, and the Pastor Fido of Guarini, appeared in 1592 and 1602; the first translated by Fraunce, and the second by Dymock*. To

*The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, by Henry Weber, Esq. 14 vols., 1812, v. 4.

return to Wither: not often has one poet addressed another in a sweeter strain than the following:

Go, my Willy, get thee gone,
Leave me in exile alone.
Hie thee to that merry throng
And amaze them with thy song.
Thou art young, yet such a lay
Never grac'd the month of May,
As (if they provoke thy skill)
Thou canst fit unto the quill.
I, with wonder, heard thee sing
At our last year's revelling:
Then I with the rest was free,
When unknown I noted thee,
And perceived the ruder swains
Envy thy far sweeter strains.
Yea, I saw the lasses cling
Round about thee in a ring;
As if each one jealous were
Any but herself should hear.

Browne did not forsake his friend in the hour of adversity, and Wither gratefully acknowledged that in listening to his cheerful music, he "forgot his wrong."

Of Browne's history little is known. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and subsequently belonged to the Inner Temple. We are told by Wood, that he had a little body and a great mind. The first part of Britannia's Pastorals was published in 1613, when the author was only twenty-three years old, and the second part in 1616. He was the beloved of Drayton and Ben Jonson, and the " severer muse of Selden commended his "tuned essays." In 1624 he returned to Exeter College in the capacity of tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards Earl of Caernarvon, who perished in the battle of Newbury. Of the later years of his life no account has been preserved. He appears to have resided in the family of Lord Pembroke, and to have obtained more wealth than usually falls to the

"

lot of poets. But the Earl's palace was a "Castle of Indolence" to Browne, and his agricultural employments also contributed to withdraw him from the service of the Muse. At any rate, his manhood never realized the promise of his youth. He is not popular, and never will be; yet we may say of him, in his own words, that he

was

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady,

That well could tune his pipe, and deftly* play
The nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy.

The song of the bird among the dewy grass, or the faint shadow of a flower upon the water, were inspirations to him. His genius was not of the highest order, but it was pure and gentle; and some of his smaller lyric poems are marked by a Grecian delicacy and finish. One specimen from his Original Poems, first published by Sir Egerton Brydgest will not be unacceptable :

Yet one day's rest for all my cries,
One hour among so many;
Springs have their Sabbaths, my poor eyes
Yet never met with any.

He that doth but one woe miss,

O Death! to make him thine

I would to God that I had his,

Or else that he had mine.

To poems like this, we may apply Dryden's remark, in the dedication of the Æneid, that the sweetest essences are always confined in the smallest glasses. The Happy Life, in the same collection, is not less beautiful.

Deftly-neatly, dexterously.

+ From a MS. volume among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum.

While residing at Oxford with his pupil, Browne received the degree of Master of Arts, with this honourable notice in the Public Register:Vir omni humaná literatura et bonarum artium cognitione instructus.

Browne has expressed his high opinion of Wither's poetry in Bri

The precise period of Wither's imprisonment has not been ascertained; but he was evidently in the Marshalsea. during the earlier spring and summer months; for Alexis, in the third eclogue, condoles with him for the loss of his liberty during the pleasant season,

When every bushy vale

And grove and hill rings with the nightingale.

His confinement is said by Wood to have increased his poetical reputation, especially among the puritanical party, who cried him 66 the more up 'for his profuse pouring forth of English rhime." Upon this "long-eared crew," the exquisite melody of the Shepherd's Hunting must have been entirely lost. The fifth eclogue is dedicated to Master W. F., of the Middle Temple, a friend whom Wither seems to have met at the rooms of Browne. W. F., who, in the Shepherd's Hunting, is represented under the name of Alexis, was unremitting in his attentions to the poet during his abode in the Marshalsea; and in the third eclogue his visits are gratefully remembered :

Alexis, you are welcome, for you know
You cannot be but welcome where I am;
You ever were a friend of mine in shew,
And I have found you are, indeed, the same.
Upon my first restraint you hither came,

And proffered me more tokens of your love

Than it were fit my small deserts should prove.

Wither did not quietly endure his incarceration. In 1614, he addressed a satire to the King, written with great vigour and freedom. The following indignant lines have all the boldness and strength, without the music, of Dryden's happiest efforts :

tannia's Pastorals, although the value of the praise is not increased by the inclusion of that dull writer, Davies :

VOL. I.

Davies and Wither, by whose Muses' power,
A natural day to me seems but an hour,
And could I ever hear their learned lays,
Ages would turn to artificial days.

Brit. Past., b. 2, song 2.

I