George Wither

WITHER, George. b. Bentworth, Hampshire, (probably) 11 June 1588; d. London, 2 May 1667. He briefly attended Magdalen College, Oxford (ca. 1604-05), but owing to his father’s money difficulties left without taking a degree. He entered the Middle Temple in 1615. He was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for his satirical publication Abuses Stript, and Whipt (1613), and again for his poem ‘Wither’s motto’ (1621). At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 he raised a troop of horse for Parliament (his capture by the Royalists gave rise to the quip by Sir John Denham that Wither should be spared, for while Wither lived Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England). Wither continued to...