Chapter L

_George Wither, the Poet, a Printer_ (Vol. ii., p. 390.).--In addition to DR. RIMBAULT'S extract from Wither's _Britain's Remembrancer_, showing that he printed (or rather composed) every sheet thereof with his own hand, I find, in a note to Mr. R.A. Willmott's volume of the _Lives of the English Sacred Poets_, in that interesting one of George Wither, the following corroboration of this singular labour of his: the poem, independent of the address to the King and the præmonition, consisting of between nine and ten thousand lines, many of which, I doubt not, were the production of his brain while he stood at the printing-case. A MS. note of Mr. Park's, in one of the many volumes of Wither which I possess, confirms me in this opinion.

"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.

_Eyes._ These rogues; you'd think them rogues,
But they are friends;
One is his printer in disguise, and keeps
His press in a hollow tree."

From this extract it should seem that Wither not only composed the poem at case (the printer's phrase), but worked it off at press with his own hands.

J.M.G.

Worcester.

"_Preached as a dying Man to dying Men_" (Vol. i., p. 415.; Vol. ii., p. 28.).--Some time ago there appeared in this series (Vol. i., p. 415.) a question respecting a pulpit-phrase which has occasionally been used by preachers, delivering their messages as "dying men to dying men." This was rightly traced (Vol. ii., p. 28.) to a couplet of the celebrated Richard Baxter, who, in one of his latest works, speaking of his ministerial exercises, says,--

"I preach'd as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men."

The passage occurs in one of his "Poetical Fragments," entitled "Love breathing Thanks and Praise."

This small volume of devotional verse is further entitled, _Heart Imployment with _GOD_ and Itself; the concordant Discord of a Broken-healed Heart; Sorrowing, Rejoicing, Fearing, Hoping, Dying, Living: published for the Use of the Afflicted_. The Introduction is dated "London: at the Door of Eternity, Aug. 7. 1681."

He yet survived ten years, in the course of which he was twice imprisoned and fined under {37} the profligate and persecuting reigns of Charles II. and James II. for his zeal and piety.

J.M.G.

Hallamshire.

_Authors of Anonymous Works._--On the title-page of the first volume of my copy of _The Monthly Intelligencer_ for 1728 and 1729, which was published anonymously, is written in MS., "By the Rev. Mr. Kimber."

This book belonged to, and is marked with the autograph of D. Hughes, 1730; but the MS. note was written by another hand.

P.H.F.

_Umbrellas_ (Vol. ii., pp. 491. 523., &c.).--I have talked with an old lady who remembered the first umbrella used in Oxford, and with another who described the surprise elicited by the first in Birmingham. An aunt of mine, born 1754, could not remember when the house was without one, though in her youth they were little used. May not the word umbrella have been applied to various sorts of _impluvia_? Swift, in his "Description of a City Shower," says:--

"Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the dangled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tuck'd-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While _streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides_."

_Tatler_, No. 238. Oct. 17. 1710.

This might be applied to an oiled cape, but I think the passage quoted by MR. CORNEY (Vol. ii., p. 523.) signifies something carried over the head.

By the way, the "Description of a City Shower" contains one of the latest examples of _ache_ as a dissyllable:--

"A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old _aches_ throb, your hollow tooth will rage."

H.B.C.

U.U. Club, Jan.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

SONNET (QUERY, BY MILTON) ON THE LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE.

In a _Collection of Recente and Witty Pieces by several eminente hands_, London, printed by W.S. for Simon Waterfou, 1628, p. 109., is the following sonnet, far the best thing in the book:--

"ON THE LIBRARIE AT CAMBRIDGE.

"In that great maze of books I sighed and said,--
It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tombe;
Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead,
Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom,
Food for the worm and redolent of mold,
Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold--
Ah, golden lettered hope!--ah, dolorous doom!
Yet mid the common death, where all is cold,
And mildewed pride in desolation dwells,
A few great immortalities of old
Stand brightly forth--not tombes but living shrines,
Where from high sainte or martyr virtue wells,
Which on the living yet work miracles,
Spreading a relic wealth richer than golden mines.

"J.M. 1627."

Attached to it, it will be seen, are the initials J.M. and the date 1627. Is it possible that this may be an early and neglected sonnet of Milton? and yet, could Milton have seriously perpetrated the pun in the second line?