books by him, as well as many new publications that were doubtfully assigned to him, besides the ‘Divine Poems’ edited by his daughter in 1688, appeared before the end of the seventeenth century. Among these are: ‘Vox et Lacrimæ Anglorum’ (London, 1668, 8vo); ‘Mr. George Wither Revived, or his Prophesie of our present Calamity, and (except we repent) future Misery, written in the year 1628’ (1683, fol. extracts from the eighth canto of ‘Britain's Remembrancer’); ‘Gemitus de Carcere Natus, or Prison Sighs and Supports, being a few broken Scraps and Crums of Comfort’ (1684, 4to); ‘The Grateful Acknowledgment of a late trimming Regulator, with a most Strange and wonderful Prophecy taken out of Britain's Genius, written by Captain George Wither’ (1688, 4to, a selection from ‘Prosopopœia Britannica’); ‘Wither's prophecy of the downfal of Antichrist,’ ‘a collection of many wonderful prophecies,’ (1691, 4to); ‘A Strange and wonderful prophecy concerning the Kingdom of England … taken out of an old manuscript by G. W.,’ 1689, fol. In ‘Wonderful Prophecies relating of the English Nation’ (1691, 4to) one of the prophecies is by Wither.
‘Wither Redivivus: in a small new years gift pro rege et grege. To his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange,’ 1689, 4to, is a medley in the manner of Wither, but is probably not by Wither himself. Of other works doubtfully assigned the most interesting is ‘The Great Assizes holden in Parnassus by Apollo’ (1645), where Wither is introduced in the jury.
Among the lost works which Wither claimed to have written are: ‘Iter Hibernicum of his Irish Voyage;’ ‘Iter Boreale;’ ‘Patrick's Purgatory;’ ‘Philaretes Complaint.’ In Ashmolean MS. 38 are some unprinted verses by him, including ‘Mr. George Withers to the king when he was Prince of Wales;’ ‘Uppon a gentlewoman that had foretold the time of her death;’ and ‘An Epitaph on the Ladie Scott.’
Wither has verses, besides those already specified, before Smith's ‘Description of New England’ (1616); Hayman's ‘Quodlibets’ (1629); Wastel's ‘Microbiblion’ (1626); Butler's ‘Female Monarchy’ (1634); Blaxton's ‘English Usurer’ (1638); beneath the portrait of Lancelot Andrews prefixed to his ‘Moral Law Expounded’ (1642); Carter's ‘Relation of the Expedition of Kent, Essex, and Colchester’ (1650); and Payne Fisher's ‘Panegyric on the Protector’ (1656). In Mercer's ‘Angliæ Speculum’ (1646, &c.) there are an anagram and epigram to the ‘famous Poet Captain George Withers.’ Cockain's ‘Divine Blossoms’ (1656) is dedicated to him.
The largest collection of Wither's works was in the library of Thomas Corser. Two earlier collectors were Alexander Dalrymple and John Matthew Gutch, and many copies that belonged to them are now in the British Museum.
The history of Wither's reputation is curious. His early reputation as a lyric poet died out in his lifetime; he himself admitted that it ‘withered.’ For some years after his death his name was usually regarded as a synonym for a hack rhymester. Royalists ranked him with Robert Wild [q. v.], the presbyterian poet. Butler, in ‘Hudibras,’ classed him with Prynne and Vicars. Phillips, in his ‘Theatrum Poetarum’ (1675), more justly wrote: ‘George Wither, a most profuse pourer forth of English rhime, not without great pretence to a poetical zeal against the vices of his times, in his “Motto,” his “Remembrancer,” and other such like satirical works. … But the most of poetical fancy which I remember to have found in any of his writings is a little piece of pastoral poetry called “The Shepherd's Hunting.”’ Richard Baxter, in the prefatory address to his ‘Poetica Fragmenta’ (1681), declared: ‘Honest George Withers, though a rustic poet, hath been very acceptable; as to some for his prophecies, so to others, for his plain country honesty.’ Dryden declared:
He fagotted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.
Pope, in the ‘Dunciad’ (i. 126), expressed scorn for ‘wretched Withers.’ Swift likened him to Bavius. Dr. Johnson and the editors of the chief collections of English poetry did not mention him or his works. But towards the end of the eighteenth century his early poems were reprinted. Percy included his famous song, ‘Shall I wasting in despair,’ and an extract from ‘Philarete,’ in his ‘Reliques of Ancient Poetry.’ Ellis quoted him in his ‘Specimens.’ The result was that critics like Lamb, Coleridge, and Southey recognised his merit, and, ignoring the political and religious lucubrations of Wither's later years, by which alone he desired to be judged, gave his literary work unstinted praise. Southey declared that he had the ‘heart and soul’ of a poet. Lamb studied him with Quarles. In the ‘Annual Review’ (1807) Lamb wrote: ‘Quarles is a wittier writer, but Wither lays more hold of the heart. Quarles thinks of his audience when he lectures; Wither soliloquises in company with a full heart.’ In an essay on
