* To graze the ranker mead; that noble herd Had given this false alarm, but straight his view He straight revokes his bold resolve, and more So t'wards a ship the oar-finn'd galleys ply, And as a hero, whom his baser foes In troops surround, now these assails, now those, Thus kings, by grasping more than they could hold, First made their subjects by oppression bold; No longer then within his banks he dwells, ON THE EARL OF STRAFFORD'S TRIAL AND DEATH. GREAT Strafford! worthy of that name, though all As chemists gold from brass by fire would draw, [This poem by Denham, though it may have been exceeded by later attempts in description, yet deserves the highest applause, as it far surpasses all that went before it. The concluding part, though a little too much crowded, is very masterly.-GOLDSMITH.] Whilst single he stood forth, and seem'd, although The hearers more concern'd than he that spake, Less seem those facts which treason's nickname bore Than such a fear'd ability for more. JOHN BULTEEL. [Died, 1669.] MR. RITSON, in his Collection of English Songs, supposes John Bulteel to have been secretary to the Earl of Clarendon, and to have died in 1669. He was the collector of a small miscellany, published about the middle of the seventeenth century. Mr. Park makes a query whether he was not the gentleman mentioned by Wood (Fasti) as having translated from French into English "A General Chronological History of France, before the reign of Pharamond." CHLORIS, 'twill be for either's rest Know then, though you were twice as fair, Yet, if you loved me not, you'd see Though I a thousand times had sworn SONG. Create a flame that never dies; Yet, if to me you proved untrue, Those oaths should prove as false to you. If love I vow'd to pay for hate, Or that my flame should deathless prove, 'Twas but to render so your love: I bragg'd, as cowards use to do, And now my tenets I have show'd, GEORGE WITHER. [Born, 1388. Died, 1667.] GEORGE WITHER, the descendant of a family who had for several generations possessed the property of Manydowne, in Hampshire, was born in that county, at Bentworth, near Alton. About the age of sixteen he was sent to Oxford, where he had just begun to fall in love with the mysteries of logic, when he was called home by his father, much to his mortification, to hold the plough. He was even afraid of being put to some mechanical trade, when he contrived to get to London, and with great simplicity had proposed to try his fortune at court. To his astonishment, however, he found that it was necessary to flatter in order to be a courtier. To show his independence he therefore wrote his "Abuses whipt and stript," and instead of rising at court, was committed for some months to the Marshalsea. But if his puritanism excited enemies, his talents and frankness gained him friends. He appears to have been intimate with the poet Browne, and to have been noticed by Selden. To the latter he inscribed his translation of the poem on the Nature of Man, from the Greek of Bishop Nemesius, an ancient father of the church. While in prison he wrote his "Shepherd's Hunting," which contains perhaps the very finest touches that ever came from his hasty and irregular pen, and besides those prison eclogues, composed his "Satire to the King," a justification of his former satires, which, if it gained him his liberation, certainly effected it without retracting his principles. It is not probable that the works of Wither will ever be published collectively, curious as they are, and occasionally marked by originality of thought: but a detailed list of them is given in the "British Bibliographer." From youth to age George continued to pour forth his lucubrations, in prophesy, remonstrance, complaint and triumph, through good and evil report, through all vicissitudes of fortune: at one time in command among the saints, and at another scrawling his thoughts in gaol, when pen and ink were denied * He was imprisoned for his "Abuses whipt and stript;" yet this could not have been his first offence, as an allusion is made to a former accusation. [It was for the Scourge (1615) that his first known imprisonment took place. He had dealt, as he tells us in after life, in particulars not in season to be touched upon, and the greatest fault of what he said was that it savoured more of honesty than discretion. Vice in high places was then more than ordinarily sensitive and suspicious, and satire when dealing in generals, like Hate, Envy, Lust and Avarice, was always individualized by the reader; and men appropriated, as Lamb says, the most innocent abstractions to themselves. Ben Jonson complains of this in more than one place.] him, with red ochre upon a trencher. It is generally allowed that his taste and genius for poetry did not improve in the political contest. Some of his earliest pieces display the native amenity of a poet's imagination; but, as he mixed with the turbulent times, his fancy grew muddy with the stream. While Milton in the same cause brought his learning and zeal as a partisan, he left the Muse behind him, as a mistress too sacred to be introduced into party brawlings; Wither, on the contrary, took his Muse along with him to the camp and the congregation, and it is little to be wondered at that her cap should have been torn and her voice made hoarse in the confusion. Soon after his liberation from prison he published the Hymns and Songs of the Church, one edition of which is dedicated to King James, in which he declares that the hymns were printed under his majesty's gracious protection. One of the highest dignitaries of the church also sanctioned his performance; but as it was Wither's fate to be for ever embroiled, he had soon after occasion to complain that the booksellers, "those cruel bee-masters," as he calls them, "who burn the poor Athenian bees for their honey," endeavoured to subvert his copy-right; while some of the more zealous clergymen complained that he had interfered with their calling, and slanderous persons termed his hymns needless songs and popish rhymes. From any suspicion of popery his future labours were more than sufficient to clear him. James, it appears, encouraged him to finish a translation of the Psalms, and was Soon after the kindly disposed towards him. decease of his sovereign, on remembering that he had vowed a pilgrimage to the Queen of Bohemia, he travelled to her court to accomplish his vow, and presented her highness with a copy of his Psalms. In 1639 he was a captain of horse in the expedition against the Scots, and quarter master general of his regiment, under the Earl of Arundel. But as soon as the civil wars broke out he sold his estate to raise a troop of horse for the parliament, and soon afterwards rose to the rank of major. In the month of October of the same year, 1642, he was appointed by parliament captain and commander of Farnham Castle, in Surrey; but his government was of short duration, for the castle was ceded on the first of December to Sir William Waller. Wither says, in his own justification, that he was advised by his superiors to quit the place; while his enemies alleged that he deserted it. The defence of his conduct which he published, seems to have been more resolute than his defence of the fortress. In the course of the civil war, he was made prisoner by the royalists, and when some of them were desirous of making an example of him, Denham, the poet, is said to have pleaded with his majesty that he would not hang him, for as long as Wither lived he (Denham) could not be accounted the worst poet in England. Wood informs us that he was afterwards constituted by Cromwell majorgeneral of all the horse and foot in the county of Surrey. In his addresses to Cromwell there is, mixed with his usual garrulity of advice and solemnity of warning, a considerable degree of adulation. His admonitions probably exposed him to little hazard; they were the croakings of the raven on the right hand. It should be mentioned however, to the honour of his declared principles, that in the "National Remembrancer" he sketched the plan of an annual and freely elected parliament, which differed altogether from the shadow of representation afforded by the government of the usurper. On the demise of Cromwell he hailed the accession of Richard with joyful gratulation. He never but once in his life foreboded good, and in that prophecy he was mistaken. At the Restoration, the estates, which he had either acquired or purchased during the interregnum, were taken from him. But the event which crushed his fortunes could not silence his pen, and he was committed first to Newgate and afterwards to The Tower, for remonstrances, which were deemed a libel on the new government. From the multitude of his writings, during a three years' imprisonment, it may be clearly gathered, that he was treated not only with rigour, but injustice; for the confiscation of his property was made by forcible entry, and besides being illegal in form, was directly contrary to the declaration that had been issued by Charles the Second before his accession. That he died in prison may be inferred from the accounts, though not clear from the dates of his biographers; but his last days must have been spent in wretchedness and obscurity*. He was buried between the east door and the south end of the Savoy church, in the Strand. wwwwwwww FROM "THE SHEPHERD'S HUNTING." SEE'ST thou not, in clearest days, With Detraction's breath and thee: It shall never rise so high As to stain thy poesy. As that sun doth oft exhale As she makes wing, she gets power! Yes, the more's her hapless fate, And though for her sake I'm crost, With those sweets the spring-tide yields ; Than the sweet-voiced Philomel; But remembrance, poor relief, That more makes than mends my grief: [* He was released from prison on the 27th July 1663, on his bond to the Lieutenant of the Tower for his good behaviour; and died, though not in prison, on the 2nd of May 1667.-See Willmott's Lives of the Sacred Poets, vol. i.] Whence she should be driven to, Some things that may sweeten gladness She hath taught me by her might Therefore then, best earthly bliss, [* The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient and modern times; strange powers have been ascribed to it of influence over animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged; THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION. SHALL I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care, What care I how fair she be ? Shall my foolish heart be pined, If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be ! What care I how good she be ? And, unless that mind I see, What care I how great she be ? Great or good, or kind or fair, I will ne'er the more despair: If she love me, this believeI will die ere she shall grieve. If she slight me when I woo, I can scorn and let her go: If she be not fit for me, What care I for whom she be? THE STEDFAST SHEPHERD. HENCE away, thou Siren, leave me, Pish! unclasp these wanton arms; Sugar'd words can ne'er deceive me, (Though thou prove a thousand charms). Fie, fie, forbear; No common snare Can ever my affection chain: Thy painted baits, And poor deceits, Are all bestow'd on me in vain. but before Wither, no one had celebrated its power at home; the wealth and the strength which this divine gift confers upon its possessor.-LAMB.] |