discern of spirits, who condemn my work as the endeavour of a private spirit. The time was, men did judge the tree by its fruit; but now they will judge the fruit by the tree. If I have expressed anything repugnant to the analogy of the Christian Faith, or irreverently opposed the orderly and allowed discipline, or dissented in any point from that spirit of verity which breathes through the Holy Catholic Church, then let that which I have done be taxed for the work of a private spirit. Or if it may appear that I have indecently intruded to meddle with those mysteries of our Christian Sanctuary, which the God of order hath, by his Divine law, reserved for those who have, according to his Ordinance, a special calling thereunto, then, indeed, let me be taxed as deserving both punishment and reproof.

"But if, making conscience of my actions, I observed that seemly distance which may make it appear I intruded not upon ought appropriated to the outward ministry; if, like an honest-hearted Gibeonite, I have but a little extraordinarily laboured to hew wood and to draw water for the spiritual sacrifices; if, according to the art of the apothecary, I have composed a sweet perfume to offer unto God, in such manner as is proper to my own faculty only, and then brought it to those to whom the consecration thereof belongs; if, keeping my own place, I have laboured for the building up of God's house, as I am bound to do, in offering up of that which God hath given me, and making use, with modesty, of those gifts which were bestowed on me to that purpose; if, I say, the case be so, what blameworthy have I done? Why should those disciples who follow Christ in a nearer place, forbid us from doing good in his name, who follow him further off? Why should they, with Joshua, forbid Eldad and Medad from prophesying, seeing that every good Christian wisheth, with Moses, that God's people were all prophets, and that He would give his spirit to them all."

This passage is interesting on many accounts, especially as showing the sentiments of Wither towards the established Church. In another part of the same pamphlet he declares, in a strain of vigour and richness almost worthy of Jeremy Taylor himself, that neither the swelling impostumations of vain glory, nor the itchings of singularity, nor the ticklings of self-love, nor the convulsions of envy, nor the inflammations of revenge, nor the hunger and thirst of gold, were able to move him to the prosecution of anything repugnant to religion or the authority of the Church*. So highly were the poet's talents and honesty at this time esteemed, that he was even urged to take Holy Orders; and his "possibilities of outward preferments in that way, he tells us, were not the least." But "while no man living more honoured the calling," he considered himself disabled by his own unworthiness, independently of the belief he constantly indulged, that God had appointed him "to serve him in some other course."

The opposition to his Hymns was violent and unceasing. "Wherever I come," he complained, "one giddy brain or another offers to fall into disputation with me about my Hymns; yea, brokers, and costermongers, and tapsters, and pedlars, and sempsters, and fiddlers, and feltmakers, and all the brotherhood of Amsterdam, have scoffingly passed sentence upon me in their conventicles, at tap-houses and taverns."

It was natural for him to feel bitterly these attacks of the ignorant and malevolent; and he alludes with pardonable self-satisfaction to the Christian intentions with which the Sacred Songs had been written, and the many hours at midnight he had devoted to their study when his tra

• The same sentiment had been before expressed in the Motto:
In my religion I dare entertain

No fancies hatched in mine own weak brain,

Nor private spirits, but am ruled by

The Scriptures, and that Church authority.

ducers were asleep. Their composition had contributed to beguile the tedious and melancholy season of his imprisonment in the Marshalsea. Wither is not the only poet

whose harp has given utterance to the sweetest and holiest music while it hung upon the willow-tree. It was in a lonely dungeon at Coimbra, in Portugal, that the accomplished Buchanan prepared his elegant translation of the Psalms. A list of books produced during confinement would be both interesting and instructive. The names of Boëthius, of Grotius, and of Raleigh, arise immediately to the memory*.

The Hymns and Songs of the Church are known to many of my readers, and can hardly fail of being admired for their unaffected piety, and plaintive harmony of expression. They breathe a domestic tenderness and simplicity not more rare than precious. Take for example two stanzas from the Thanksgiving for Victory:—

mons.

We love thee, Lord, we praise thy name,
Who by Thy great almighty arm,

Hast kept us from the spoil and shame
Of those that sought our causeless harm:
Thou art our life, our triumph-song,
The joy and comfort of our heart;
To Thee all praises do belong,
And Thou the Lord of armies art.

This song we therefore sing to Thee,
And pray that Thou for evermore
Would'st our Protector deign to be,
As at this time and heretofore.

* I find the following notices in the Journals of the House of Com"One hath a patent of sole printing on one side: hath been often warned to bring it in. To have the sergeant-at-arms go for him. Ordered. The like for Wither's patent."-J. of H. of C., May 15, 1624.

"After complaint made against Withers, the sergeant's man, who took him, related at the bar how he was withstood and abused by one at whose house Withers lay. That Withers assisted him, and kept him from wrong."-J. of H. of C., May 22, 1624.

It is probable that these extracts apply to our poet.

That Thy continual favour shown
May cause us more to Thee incline,

And make throughout the world be known,
That such as are our foes, are Thine.

The prayer

and earnest.

for Seasonable Weather is not less simple

Lord, should the sun, the clouds, the wind,

The air and seasons be

To us so froward and unkind,

As we are false to Thee;

All fruits would quite away be burned,
Or lie in water drowned,
Or blasted be, or overturned,
Or chilled on the ground.

But from our duty though we swerve,
Thou still dost mercy show,

And deign Thy creatures to preserve
That men might thankful
grow;

Yet, though from day to day we sin,
And Thy displeasure gain,

No sooner we to cry begin,

But pity we obtain.

The weather now Thou changéd hast,

That put us late to fear,

And when our hopes were almost past,

Then comfort did appear.

The heaven the earth's complaint hath heard,

They reconciled be;

And Thou such weather hast prepared,

As we desired of Thee.

The touching pathos of these verses will be felt by all. The language is unadorned and homely, and the thoughts such as arise to every Christian mind. Yet his humblest strains frequently awake a cheerfulness and serenity in the heart of the reader. The spirit of his supplication is so pure and beautiful, that we do not doubt for an instant that the golden sceptre of mercy will be extended to it*.

*The Hynins were approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Wither declared, with exultation, that in the Spiritual Songs the learned prelate only required the alteration of one word.

The Hymns and Songs were set to music by Orlando Gibbons, one of the most distinguished musicians of his time, and many of whose compositions, particularly the Hosanna, are still extant in the Cathedral books. The

tunes to which he adapted the Hymns are described by Sir John Hawkins as melodies in two parts, and excellent in their kind*. Gibbons died about two years after the publication of the Hymns, in his 45th year, and was buried in the Cathedral of Canterbury.

Wither was a spectator of the plague that desolated the metropolis in 1625, and thirty-six years afterwards he declared, that he did "in affection thereunto make here his voluntary residence, when hundreds of thousands forsook their habitations, that if God spared his life during that mortality, he might be a remembrancer both to this city and the whole nationt." The results of his melancholy experience he afterwards embodied in Britain's Remembrancer. The history of this singular poem furnishes another proof of the indomitable perseverance of his character. "It is above two years," he tells us, "since I laboured to get this book printed, and it hath cost me more labour, more money, more pains, and much more time to publish, than to compose it; for I was fain to imprint every sheet thereof with my own hand, because I could not get allowance to do it publicly‡."

* History of Music, vol. iv. p. 35.

+ Crums and Scraps lately found in a Prisoner's Basket at Newgate, by Geo. Wither, 1661. Wither's example was followed, in 1665, by Thomas Vincent, a minister of the Gospel, who remained in London during the plague, with the express object of keeping alive in himself and others the memory of the Judgment. See God's Terrible Voice to the City, by T. V., 1667.

Ben Jonson, in Time Vindicated, has satirized the custom, then very prevalent among the pamphleteers of the day, of providing themselves with a portable press, which they moved from one hiding-place to another with great facility. He insinuates that Chronomastix, under whom he intended to represent Wither, employed one of these presses. Thus, upon the entrance of the Mutes.

Fame. What are this pair?
Eyes. The ragged rascals?