into his clutches), desired his majesty not to hang him, 'because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not he accounted the worst poet in England:'" and under Cromwell, Wither held several offices.
At the Restoration, he was thrown into prison, on the ground of a political pamphlet which was found amongst his papers. His imprisonment was again with seventy. Being denied proper writing materials, he was reduced to the necessity of scrawling his verses with an "oker pencil" upon the trenchers. Some of his poems bear traces both of his suffering and of his divine consolation. One suggestive piece is devoted to the spiritual lessons an imprisonment may teach. It is entitled, "Meditations in Prison."
Wither's works are too numerous to mention; but there is one of too great historical interest to be overlooked. It is called "Britain's Remembrancer," and it was written to commemorate the Plague in London. To bear solemn testimony of this terrible calamity, he remained bravely at his residence on the bank of the Thames while some were fleeing, and many were falling around him. He wrote in prison one of the best of his pieces, "The Shepherds Hunting." In 1622, he published a collection of his poems, with the title, "Mistress of Philarete;" in 1635, his collection of "Emblems, Ancient and Modern;" and in 1638, eight separate poetical pieces, afterwards published together, under the title "Juvenilia." As a poet, he is classed with his contemporary, Francis Quarles (1592–1644), and it has been truly said of his poetry, "The vice of Wither, as it was generally of the literature of his age, was a passion for ingenious turns and unexpected conceits, which bear the same relation to really beautiful thoughts, that plays upon words do to true wit."
Wither s poetry was for a long period undervalued. It became usual to sneer at him. Pope, in the "Dunciad," calls him "Wretched Wither;" but impartial critics of later times, Hallam, Charles Lamb, Southey, and others, while acknowledging that he wrote too much to write always
