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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.