after ridiculing the preposterous foreign fashions of the

times,

I hope that she

Who shall be mine (if any such there be)
Whatever accident or change befals,

Will still retain her English naturals.

Canto vi. p. 178.

In the Topographical Miscellanies, quoted by Park, he is conjectured to have been united to Catherine Chester, of Woolvesly, near Winchester, in 1657. But this lady has no claim upon our poet. We learn from Aubrey, that he married Elizabeth Emerson, of South Lambeth, who was a great wit, and could write in verse too." Her talents. and virtues were her only dowry, for he says, in Salt upon Salt,

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Nor by wiving,

Which is to some a sudden way of thriving,
Was my estate repair'd.

Of her domestic tenderness and excellence, Wither has left many interesting memorials. As "woman, mistress, mother, wife," she discharged her duty with piety; unwearied in doing good, her hand was ever ready to assist the neighbouring poor; the morning found her "first to wake," at "night her candle went not out." This excellent woman recovered from her illness, and her grateful husband composed a Thanksgiving to God upon the

occasion.

The absence of the poet's wife was not his only affliction; he was supported in Newgate by some of his relations, who, as he pathetically acknowledged, were scarcely able to maintain themselves; and not unfrequently, in the solitude of his cell, he reflected upon the injury his imprudent conduct had inflicted upon them. The destitute condition of his wife and surviving children was also a frequent subject of meditation and prayer. In the Im

provement of Imprisonment are many affecting compositions of this kind: the following very touching verses may be taken as a specimen :

Thereof be therefore heedful,
Them favour not the less,
Supply with all things needful
In this our great distress.
And when Thou me shalt gather,
Out of this Land of Life,
Be Thou my children's Father,
A Husband to my wife*.

When I to them must never

Speak more with tongue or pen,

And they be barr'd for ever
To see my face again-
Preserve them from each folly,
Which, ripening into sin,
Makes root and branch unholy,
And brings destruction in.
Let not this world bewitch them
With her besotting wine,
But let Thy grace enrich them
With faith and love divine.

And whilst we live together,
Let us upon Thee call,
Help to prepare each other,
For what may yet befall:
So just, so faithful-hearted,
So constant let us be,
That when we here are parted,
We may all meet in Thee.

How constantly the spiritual well-doing of his children was his anxious theme, will be seen from an epistle addressed to them from Newgate, 15th of February, 1662.

* In the beautiful letter addressed to his wife by Sir Walter Raleigh, when under the fear of immediate execution, he says, after alluding to the vanity of human life;-"Teach your son, also, to love and fear God while he is yet young, that the fear of God may grow up with him, and then God will be a Husband to you, and a Father to him ;-a Husband and a Father that cannot be taken from you." Quarles, in his Prayers and Meditations, frequently uses the same image.

To my Dearly Beloved Children,

About twenty years now past, though I had then temporal possessions, which I might probably have given and bequeathed, I composed and intended for your legacy, A Soliloquy and Prayer, which I had spread in writing before God on your behalfes; and I believe it shall continue for ever in his view. But there being but one copy thereof, both you and I were deprived of that composure, when the book for which I here suffer was taken out of my closet. Therefore being now likely to be so separated from you, how much soever it may concern our temporal or spiritual well-beings, that I may, perhaps, thenceforth never see you more, I send you this sacrifice of praise and prayer, next following, to be instead of that which is lost; for it contains in effect somewhat (as to the petitionary part) of that which was spread before God (as aforesaid) in a larger scroll. Take it into your serious considerations, and lay it up among your evidences; for it will speak to your advantage, when I can speak no more for you; when other men, who can speak for you, will not; when many, perhaps, will speak against you, and when you shall not be able to speak for yourselves.

God sanctify unto you this brief memorandum, and you to his glory, that we may all meet together in Him to our everlasting joy. Be obedient to your mother, the enjoyment of whose company will more than recompense the loss of mine; for God hath endowed her with so much natural prudence and love, that by her counsel (if you despise it not) your posterity may be continued on the earth, until Christ comes to gather together his elect. Remember the counsel of your earthly father, that the promise made by your heavenly Father to the Rechabites may be enlarged to you and your posterity, for your and their personal obedience to God's covenant made with all mankind in Christ Jesus (according to that assisting grace which He vouchsafed), toward the accomplishing of what I have prayed for concerning you. The blessing of God be with you, and farewell. Your affectionate Father, GEO. WITHER*.

Newgate, Feb. 15, 1662.

On the afternoon of the 24th of March, he was brought from Newgate to the bar of the House of Commons, and the libel having been shown him, he acknowledged "that the same might be in his hand, but that it was but parcel of what he intended; and the other writing being shown From the Private Meditations, reprinted 1666, first printed in

1665.

to him, he confessed the same to be of his own handwriting." Henry Northrop and Robert Heyborne were then called in, and they deposed that they "took the said papers from under Mr. Withers his hand, and that he was writing part of them just when they were taken from him." At the conclusion of the examination, it was resolved that Wither should be delivered "to the Lieutenant of the Tower, there to be kept in close custody, and be denied pen, ink, and paper, and debarred from having any company to come unto him;" and it was referred to the Solicitor-General to draw up an impeachment, and report it to the House at their next meeting. These severe commands seem to have been implicitly followed; even his "black-lead" was taken away, and he had no resource but to scrawl his verses with an oker-pencil" upon three trenchers, which were carried by the keeper to the lieutenant of the Tower. He was at this time an object of so much notoriety, that the "diurnal-women" cried the news of his impeachment for treason about the streets.

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The House re-assembled on the 3rd of April, when it was ordered, that the "thanks of this House be returned to his Majesty for his grace and favour, in causing George Withers to be apprehended and detained in custody for the seditious libel by him contrived against the members of this House;" and Lord Falkland was directed to carry the address to his Majesty. Nothing more, however, seems to have been said of the impeachment; and on the 9th of April, upon consideration of a petition presented on behalf "of George Wither, now a prisoner in the Tower," it was ordered that his wife should be admitted to visit him, with a view of eliciting from him a "recantation and submission for the misdemeanour for which he was committed." But her efforts were slow in producing the required confession, and it was not until the 27th of July, 1663, that he was directed to be discharged, giving bond to

the Lieutenant of the Tower for his good behaviour*. Mr. Campbell does not appear to have been aware of this release, for he improperly concludes that the poet died in prison.

The MS. pamphlet, for which he underwent this long and severe imprisonment, was addressed to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon; and it is imposssible to account for the vindictive tyranny with which an offence, of such slight comparative turpitude, was visited. As the work was never printed, it could not be said to have done any injury.

Neither age nor sufferings had any effects upon the fluency of his pen. Soon after his discharge, perceiving the growing differences between this country and Holland, he sounded his Tuba Pacifica, or Trumpet of Peace; and when the public mind was agitated by the expectation of an engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, he "breathed out" some dull Sighs for the Pitchers; two pitchers being the emblems by which the rival nations were represented on the title-page.

Wither, whose narrative of the Plague in 1625, has been already noticed, was doomed to be a second time the spectator of its dreadful ravages. The pestilence broke out in April, and in June he seems to have escaped its fury; for he observes in the Memorandum to London, p. 28, "God be praised, not so much as one hath been sick of any disease in my house since the plague began, nor is it, to my knowledge, near my habitation." But he afterwards suffered from the visitation. In the preamble to the Meditation upon the Lord's Prayer, he says, "During the great mortality yet continuing, and wherein God evidently visited his own household, my little family, con

* Aubrey says that he was imprisoned in the Tower about three quarters of a year; but this is a mistake, for his confinement lasted nearly sixteen months.