Wither did not continue many months in Kent. In October, 1642, he was appointed Governor of Farnham Castle, in Surrey, which had been recently occupied for the King by Sir John Denham. The military skill of the rival poets seems to have been equal, but Wither attempted to cast the odium resulting from his desertion of the place upon his employers, who neglected to supply him with the means of defence. Finding the popular feeling still against him, in the early spring of 1643 he put forth A Shield and Shaft against Detraction, and pronounced every person who accused him of acting in a manner derogatory to the character of a gentleman, "a fool, a coward, a villain, or all." During the civil war, hard words were dealt as freely as hard blows, and the poet was not singular in the energy of his style. We shall find a greater far, even Milton, indulging his anger in a similar strain. Wither, who, according to his own account, was the first in Surrey who had taken arms for the Parliament, was also the first who suffered in its behalf. His farm at Wanborough, a village about four miles from Guildford, was plundered by the royalists. Edward Browne, in his Pathetical Apology for Book-making, dated from London, in December, 1642, says, "Captain George Wither hath my certificate, but I fear he is so perplexed because his house near Guildford, in Surry, was plundered by the king's cavaliers, that he can find no spare time to sign it." This event took place, it is probable, towards the beginning of January, 1642, for we discover from the Journals of the House of Commons that an order from the Committee of Safety for immediate payment to Wither of 3287. 6s. out of the coinage of plate, was issued, January 6, 1642. L He estimated his loss at 20001., and several attestations upon oath were laid before the Parliament verifying this statement. Few poets have possessed a dwelling so richly stored with provisions of every description. He enumerates, among other articles, a thousand weight of cheese, nearly eight hundred-weight of butter, six or seven hogsheads of beer and cider, of the whole of which the house was entirely pillaged. Having obtained the order of Parliament to indemnify himself upon the property of his plunderers *, one of whom was the poet Denham, then high-sheriff of the county, he lost no time in seizing upon the goods of "Master Denham and Master Tichborne." Both of these estates, however, were at the time untenanted, and the "goods which were Master Denham's," were, by an order of some sequestrators, taken out of Wither's hands, and put into the possession of Denham's wife, who, "as do many other delinquents," the poet indignantly complained, found much more favour than he "did who had been ever faithful to the State." "For when my wife and children," he continues, "had been cruelly driven out of their habitation, and robbed of all Journal of the House of Commons, February 9, 1642. Whereas, Mr. Denham, High Sheriff of the County of Surrey, Captain Hudson, Captain Brednoxe, Mr. Jo. Tichborne, and others, did, in a hostile manner, enter into the house and grounds of Captain George Wither, and did from thence carry and take away all his books and writings, with his goods and household-stuff, cattle, sheep, corn, and hay, and his teams, to the value of at least 20004., as appeareth by an inventory of the parti culars taken and estimated by his neighbours and others. It is therefore, this day ordered, by the Commons' House of Parliament, that the said Captain George Wither, be authorized by this House to repair himself for his said losses out of the estates of the said Sheriff and Captains, and such other persons who were accessory unto, or actually spoilers and plunderers of the estate of the said Captain Wither; or out of the goods and estates of such persons that are actually in arms against the Parlia ment. And that wheresoever the said Captain Wither doth find any of the goods or estates belonging to any of the said persons aforesaid, that he do seize the same and take it into his custody for his relief, as aforesaid. they had, by her husband and his confederates, and when, by virtue of the forementioned order, I justly entered upon the house of the said Denham, purposing to harbour my said wife and children therein, Mistress Denham, having long before deserted the house, and left there only some tables, with such-like household-stuff, was, upon false suggestions, put again, by order, into possession of the house, because, as her charitable patron alleged, she was a gentlewoman, big with child, and had a fancy to the place*." Aubrey has given a rambling account of this occurrence. "In the time of the civil war, Geo. Withers, the poet, begged Sir John Denham's estate of the Parliament, in whose cause he was a captain of horse. It happened that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, having written severely against the king. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired his Majesty not to hang him, for that while G. W. lived, he should not be the worst poet in England t." It seems likely that our poet's captivity took place after the battle of Edge-hill, on the 23rd of October, 1642, for we learn from Clarendon, that a very considerable number of the Parliament's cavalry officers were taken after that engagement. A similar act of malicious kindness was performed by Henry Martin, when he saved the life of Sir William • "Ordered that the humble petition of Anne, the wife of John Denham, Esq., be referred to the examination of the Committee of this House for sequestration, or any three of them; and that in the mean time they shall have full power to deliver unto her child-bed linen and such other necessaries as they shall see fit."-Journals of the House of Commons, 11th May, 1643. M. Lefevre-Couchy, the writer of the article on Wither in the Biographie Universelle, remarks on this anecdote, with pleasing simplicity, Wither ne fut donc pas pendu. History of the Rebellion, 4to. ed., Oxford, vol.fi, pt. 1, p. 77. Davenant; but in Denham's request there was a bitterness which spoke of the lost fields at Egham. The name of Denham frequently recurs in the life of Wither. At this time his talents were not in much repute, although the Sophy, which gave rise to Waller's witty saying, that he broke out, like the Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong, when nobody suspected it, was published in 1642*, and, according to Aubrey, "did take extremely." Soon after the battle of Edge-hill, his well-known poem of Cooper's Hill is said to have been printed at Oxford, "on a sort of brown paper, for there they could get no better." But this story, which has been always unhesitatingly credited, is not reconcileable with the fact of an edition of the poem having been published in London, by Thomas Walkley, in August, 1642. The poetical fortune of Denham forms a singular contrast to that of his rival. While Wither has been long forgotten, except by a few students of our old poetry, the works of Denham have been carefully collected, and his life written by one who touched nothing he did not adorn. Yet Johnson, it must be confessed, was too favourable in his estimate of the poet's genius; his claim to the invention of a species of poetry, to which the great critic has applied the name of local, seems to be purely imaginary. Cooper's Hill has nothing about it local, but the name t. Wither and Browne furnished specimens far more individually descriptive than any Aubrey says it came out in 1640. I suppose he meant it was acted in that year. The four lines, which since their commendation by Dryden, have been so often celebrated, are not found in the first London edition of Cooper's Hill. They stand thus:- O could my verse freely and smoothly run As thy pure flood, heaven should no longer know Should bathe the gods, and be the poet's theme. thing in Denham. Pope formed a truer estimate of his merits, when he styled him "Majestic Denham," an appellation to which the occasional dignity of his manner, particularly in the Lines upon the Earl of Strafford, fully entitled him. In more peaceful times his Muse might have given utterance to a grander strain. The happier efforts of his pen are still remembered with pleasure, and the portrait left of him by his friend Aubrey, places the poet before us in an interesting light. "He was of the tallest, but a little incurveting at his shoulders, not very robust. His hair was but thin and flaxen, with a moist curl. His eye a kind of light goose grey, not big, but it had a strange piercingness, not as to shining and glory (but like a Momus) when he conversed with you, he looked into your very thoughts." * * * On the 25th of July, 1643, the House of Commons directed the knights and burgesses of Middlesex and Surrey to summon Wither before them, and inquire what money or goods he had received upon the Orders of the 9th of February, and from whom, and what lands he possessed. The loss of his property, and the interruption of his agricultural occupations involved him in great distress; he was fined and imprisoned, and on him was "laid the censure" merited by others. Nothing remained for his support but "the poor household furniture within his door." His friends forsook him as "a faulty man," and his enemies grew bold and insolent in proportion. His afflictions cannot be told more touchingly than in his own narrative: To add yet further to my great afflictions, God with a sickness (spreading forth infections) |