"That is, in effect, A loving wife that never violated her faith is alwayes to be beloved. Which makes me conjecture, that he minding for his recreation to set out the idea of a constant wife (rather describing what good wives should do than registring what any hath done,) devised a woman's name that might fitly expresse this woman's nature whom he would aime at: desirous in this (as I conjecture) to imitate a far off, either Plato in his commonwealth, or More in his Utopia."[665:B] Prefixed are two commendatory copies of verses, of which the second, signed Contraria Contrariis, is remarkable for an allusion to Shakspeare's "Rape of Lucrece," and will be noticed hereafter.
Of invention and enthusiasm, the poet's noblest boast, few traits are discoverable in the Avisa, nor can it display any vivid delineation of passion; but it occasionally unfolds a pleasing vein of description, and both the diction and metre are uniformly clear, correct, and flowing. Indeed, the versification may be pronounced, for the age in which it appeared, peculiarly sweet and well modulated, and the whole
poem, in language and rhythm, makes a close approximation to modern usage.
39. Wither, George. This very voluminous writer is introduced here, in consequence of his Juvenilia, which constitute the best of his works, having been all printed or circulated before the death of Shakspeare. He was born at Bentworth, near Alton in Hampshire, in 1590, and, after a long life of tumult, vicissitude, and disappointment, died in his seventy-eighth year in 1667. He continued to wield his pen to the last month of his existence, and more than one hundred of his pieces, in prose and verse, have been enumerated by Mr. Park in a very curious and elaborate catalogue of his works.[666:A] We shall confine ourselves, however, for the reason already assigned, to that portion of his poetry which was in circulation previous to 1616.
It appears from Wither's own catalogue of his works[666:B], that four of his earliest poems, entitled "Iter Hibernicum," "Iter Boreale," "Patrick's Purgatory," and "Philarete's Complaint," were lost in manuscript. The first of his published productions was printed in 1611, under the title of "Abuses Stript and Whipt: or Satyricall Essays. Divided into two Bookes;" 8vo., to which were annexed "The Scourge," a satire, and "Certaine Epigrams." This book, he tells us[666:C], was written in 1611, and its unsparing severity involved him in persecution, and condemned him for several months to a prison. It was nevertheless highly popular, and underwent an eighth impression in 1633.
An elegant writer in the British Bibliographer has subjoined the following very just and interesting remarks to his notice of these poignant satires. "The reign of King James," he observes, "was not propitious to the higher orders of poetry. All those bold features, which nourished the romantic energies of the age of his predecessor, had been suppressed by the selfish pusillanimity and pedantic policy
of this inglorious monarch. Loving flattery and a base kind of luxurious ease, he was insensible to the ambitions of a gallant spirit, and preferred the cold and barren subtleties of scholastic learning to the breathing eloquence of those who were really inspired by the muse. Poetical composition therefore soon assumed a new character. Its exertions were now overlaid by learning, and the strange conceits of metaphysical wit took place of the creations of a pure and unsophisticated fancy. It was thus that Donne wasted in the production of unprofitable and short-lived fruit the powers of a most acute and brilliant mind. It was thus that Phineas Fletcher threw away upon an unmanageable subject the warblings of a copious and pathetic imagination. The understanding was more exercised in the ingenious distortion of artificial stores, than the faculties which mark the poet in pouring forth the visions of natural fiction.
"Such scenes as youthful poets dream,
On summer eve, by haunted stream,
were now deemed insipid. The Fairy Fables of Gorgeous Chivalry were thought too rude and boisterous, and too unphilosophical for the erudite ear of the book-learned king!