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 prepar'd,

As we desir'd of Thee.

The touching pathos of these verses will be felt by all. Wither seems to have been convinced, with Johnson, that Omnipotence could not be exalted, and that perfection could not be improved. His language is unadorned and homely, and the thoughts such as would naturally arise to a calm and benevolent 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 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 Wither's Hymns are described by Sir John Hawkins as melodies in two parts, and excellent in their kind†. Gibbons died about two years

The Hymns 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.

↑ History of Music, vol. iv., p. 35.

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 which 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 nation*." 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 t." The printers were naturally unwilling to become remembrancers in this kind; almost every page contained enough objectionable matter to send them to Newgate.

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., 1567.

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?

Fame. Yes.

The plague first broke out in the house of a Frenchman, "without the Bishop-gate," and Wither describes with considerable animation the general consternation that ensued upon the dreadful discovery, and the multitude of remedies and preventives proposed. The streets were carefully cleansed, and all kinds of herbs and perfumes, "pure frankincense or myrrh," or in the absence of these, pitch, rosin, tar, &c., were burnt to purify the air*. Then arose the race of empirics: one had "a perfume of special note;" another, an antidote which had been applied with the greatest success at Constantinople, when a thousand persons died daily. Instructions, equally ineffectual, were also published by authority. The contagion or non-contagion of the plague, was also a favourite subject of discussion. Wither is a decided advocate of non-contagion, and his arguments are supported by the fact that very few sextons or surgeons died; that among the market-people who brought provisions into the city, he did not hear of any deaths, and that in the parish where he resided, and in which the mortality amounted to nearly "half a thousand" weekly, not one of the common bearers of the dead fell a victim to the pestilence. Wither was at this time living by "Thames' fair bank," probably in the Savoy, which appears to have been a favourite situation with him.

The plague, which at first spread slowly, soon rushed out with terrible fury, in spite of the "halberds and watches." But the steps of the destroyer were wrapt in

In An Advice set down by the most learned in Physic within this Realm, annexed to Orders of the Privy Council, in 1625, was the following recipe for correcting the air in houses. "Take rosemary dried, or juniper, bay-leaves or Frankincense, cast the same into a chafing-dish, and receive the fume or smoke thereof."

Many persons wore round their necks amulets made of arsenic, which they esteemed an infallible prophylactic.

mystery, no man could tell his going out or coming in; people looked with terror and dismay upon each other. Men were fearful grown

To tarry or converse among their own.
Friends fled each other; kinsmen stood aloof;
The son to come within his father's roof
Presumed not; the mother was constrain'd
To let her child depart unentertain'd.

Britain's Remembrancer, canto 2.

In the midst of the general confusion and flight of the inhabitants, we learn that the Lord Mayor, uninfluenced by the desertion of his brother magistrates, remained at his post, and devoted himself to the heavy duties that devolved upon him. On the 21st of June, a general fast was agreed to by the House of Commons; and, on the 11th of July, Parliament adjourned from Westminster, and met at Oxford on the 1st of August. Wither, meanwhile, having" thrown his own affairs aside," employed himself in walking about the city.

But far I needed not to pace about,

Nor long inquire to find such objects out;
For every place with sorrows then abounded,
And every way the cries of mourning sounded.
Yea, day by day, successively till night,

And from the evening till the morning light
Were scenes of grief with strange variety,
Knit up in one continuing tragedy.
No sooner waked I, but twice twenty knells,
And many sadly-sounding passing bells
Did greet mine ear, and by their heavy tolls,
To me gave notice-that some early souls
Departed whilst I slept; that others—some
Were drawing onward to their longest home.

So long the solitary nights did last,
That I had leisure my accounts to cast.

And think upon, and over-think those things,
Which darkness, loneliness, and sorrow brings.
My chamber entertained me all alone,
And in the rooms adjoining lodged none.
Yet through the darksome silent night did fly
Sometime an uncouth noise, sometime a cry,
And sometimes mournful callings pierced my room,
Which came I neither knew from whence, nor whom.
And oft betwixt awaking and asleep,

Their voices, who did talk, or pray, or weep,

Unto my listening ears a passage found,
And troubled me by their uncertain sound.

Glad was I when I saw the sun appear,
(And with his rays to bless our hemisphere)
That from the tumbled bed I might arise,
And with some lightsomeness refresh mine eyes;
Or with some good companions read or pray,
To pass the better my sad thoughts away.

The poet then describes the deserted appearance of London, as he beheld it in his walks: "much-peopled Westminster" was almost entirely forsaken, and Whitehall, which, not three months before, had been the scene of festivity and courtly merriment, now lay solitary.

As doth a quite forsaken monastery,

In some lone forest, and we could not pass

To many places, but thro' weeds and grass.

The Strand, then the residence of the most powerful and wealthy of the nobility, where Wither had often seen "well nigh a million passing in one day," had nearly become an unfrequented road; no smoke from the "city houses" told of hospitality and mirth. The Inns of Court were deserted; the "Royal Change," the great mart for all nations, was avoided as a place of certain danger," and the Cathedral of St. Paul's had