(Vol. iii., p. 330.)
A correspondent, S. S. S., inquires concerning one of the numberless,
and now almost fameless, works of George Wither, a poet of the
seventeenth century, famous in his generation, but unworthily disparaged
in that which followed him; the names of Quarles and Wither being
proverbially classed with those of Bavius and Mævius in the Augustan
age. The _Hallelujah_ of the latter has become precious from its rarity.
A copy of this volume (of nearly 500 pages) was lent to me several years
ago, by a collector of such treasures. On the blank at the back of the
cover, there was written a memorandum that it had been bought at Heber's
sale by Thorpe the bookseller for sixteen guineas; my friend, I had
reason to believe, paid a much higher price for it, when it fell into
his hands. The contents consist of several hundreds of _hymns_ for all
sorts and conditions of men, on all the ordinary, and on many of the
extraordinary circumstances of human life. Of course they are very
heterogeneous, yet no small number are beyond the average of such
compositions in point of devotional and poetical excellence.