Excerpt from Hallelujah or Britain's Second Remembrancer; Bringing to Remembrance in Praiseful and Penitential Hymns, Spiritual Songs, and Moral Meditations, Advancing the Glory of God, in the Practice of Piety and Virtue It was not long, however, before a great change came over the feelings of the nation. It became the fashion among critics of sacred poetry, to regard it as poetry of an inferior order.* For some time after the period in which Wither lived some of his religious verses were reprinted, but they were apparently more in request for their devotional than their poetical qualities. It was not considered that poetry and devotion were compatible. The poet might sing of earth, and earthly things, and his muse would be listened to by an attentive audience, but when he ventured to touch on heaven and heavenly things his song was unheeded. Critics and readers alike seem to have come to the con elusion that the essential breath of heaven, which poesy is, might be better spent in whispering the carnal loves of the creature than the divine love of God their Creator and Redeemer.

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