standing on an eminence over Alton, close to Bentworth, the poet's birthplace, and commanding a view as far as the hills of Farnham and Hindhead in Surrey. The name, too, was known at Bentworth, where in the church there still exists a most beautiful oak font-cover, pyramidal in shape, with the legend round three sides of the base,

I AM GEVEN BI | MARTHA HVNT

ANNO. 1605.

The proximity of Theddon to Bentworth is another link; they are not two miles apart. Whether George the elder chose Bentworth for his home and there found a wife, or whether he went there to be near his wife's home, is of course unknown. At Bentworth,1 however, on June 11, 1588, while the Great Armada was on its way to England, a son was born to George and Mary Wither,2 and named after his father.

Bentworth, some ten miles to the south-east of Manydown, and four to the west of Alton, stands high on a "chalky down," and its "beechy shadows" may still be enjoyed, though Scotch firs, elms, and oaks are also conspicuous. Larger elms the poet saw at Oxford, when he went to Magdalen, and an even grander yew than the one in Bentworth churchyard, he no doubt saw in that of Selborne, afterwards described by Gilbert White; but the whole effect of the Hampshire scenery must have helped the inclination to poetry of the young George Wither, from

1 The registers are irregular till 1603. The date is from Wood.

2 Their other children were two sons, James and Anthony, and four daughters, Mary, Anne, Jane, and Polyxena.

Bentworth's beeches to the Pool of Alresford, both of which he has effectively sung.

If the young poet was fortunate in his natural surroundings, he was no less so in his circumstances. In the third canto of his Britain's Remembrancer he alludes to the ease and luxury of his early life under the paternal roof:

"When daily I on change of dainties fed,
Lodged night by night upon an easy bed
In lordly chambers, and had wherewithal
Attendants forwarder than I to call,

Who brought me all things needful; when at hand,
Hounds, hawks, and horses were at my command.'

Wood

Nevertheless, he had to go to school. tells us he was "educated in grammatical learning under the noted schoolmaster of those parts called John Greaves of Colemore." This was the father of John Greaves, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford in 1643, and of Dr. Thomas Greaves, D.D., whom Wood calls a "man of great learning." That Wither remembered his early tutor with affection, is shown in one of the Epigrams (No. 16) attached to Abuses Stript and Whipt.

Leaving this school, “no whit in grammar-rules to seek, in Lillie's Latin, nor in Camden's Greek," he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in his fifteenth year, as he tells us.

Assuming this to be 1603, it seems we must modify the statement of Wood, that he came under John Warner's tutorship, and that of Aubrey, who says "he was pupill to bishop Warner of Rochester: " if he was, it was not at the beginning of his university

career. On this period the Rev. H. A. Wilson, of Magdalen College, Oxford, has kindly sent the subjoined notes:

"There seems to be no reference to George Wither in the records of Magdalen. I have not come upon any: Mr. Macray, who has recently examined the accounts and other documents of the College for the early part of the seventeenth century, tells me that he has found no mention of his name; and as Dr. Bloxam's MS. notes contain no reference to any such mention, I infer that he found none. possibility that Wither was in residence for some time as a nonBut this is quite consistent with the foundationer. The College admission-registers of the time record only the admissions of Demies and Fellows: and it is very rarely that non-foundationers are mentioned in any of the College books of the seventeenth century.

"Apparently Wither's name is not to be found in the University matriculation registers. But it is not impossible that he may have been admitted to the College and been in residence without being matriculated. The practice in the matter of matriculation was sometimes lax: and though Nicolas Bond, who was President at the time when Wither is said to have resided, was not so lax as his predecessor or his successor, he may have failed in some cases to observe the rule. It is, of course, also possible that the name may have been accidentally omitted.

"Wood's statement that Wither was assigned as a pupil to John Warner, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, suggests a date later than 1604. For Warner only became Probationer Fellow in July 1604, and was not M.A. till June 1605. He is hardly likely to have been acting as a College Tutor so early as 1603 or 1604, even under the rudimentary system of college tuition which was growing up under Bond. Probably that system did not extend to commoners, who were regarded as being under the special care of the President: and it is not impossible that Bond might have committed Wither to the charge of Warner even before the latter became M.A. or actual Fellow. Warner was apparently regarded as a rather exceptional person, for the Col. lege in 1604 petitioned the King to withdraw his recommendation of a candidate for a Fellowship so as to allow them to elect Warner. But, on the whole, the alleged connection seems in favour of a date after July 1604, if not after June 1605."H. A. W.

Of his career at Oxford, Wither himself has given an account at the beginning of his Abuses Stript and Whipt (1613).