that I must beg leave to lessen though I cannot hope to have it wholly remitted in saying the justness of your Ladyships cause of stay made me presume none had so little compassion as to deny it and that I might expect the being freed from my ague without danger of losing the opportunity of presenting my humble thanks for so many singall favours undeservedly conferred on me but since that happiness with many others is lost by your Ladyships absence honour this paper so far I beseech you as to suffer it to supply my defects herein and testify how ambitious I shall be by my future observance to merit the title of Madam Your most humble servant A.B. LXXII Vpon the death of a fair Lady Sir AMong other impartments your last tells mee you were to usher a fair Lady to her grave A Corporall work of Mercy it is to bury the Dead I grant but to interr so great a Beauty â—eâ—ms to entrench on Pity and blast the Spring Had she lived till Autumne or even Midsommer the funeralls of many flowers had lamented her Urne yea if but till they had been blown they would have lost their lives to adorn her Hearse and have been ambitious like those Savages to have been buried quick with their Ladie Paragon for her attendance in the other World But she has inverted Nature and the Season too the flower of beauty died when the beauty of flowers should spring and so has not onely left a withered World but dismayed the Blowth of what should garnish it Flowers are disheartened to open their fragrant Colors since their Pattern is so early Cropt and seem to intend being she 's entomb'd under the Earths surface to keep themselves under Earth to accompany her dust yet I will free you of cruelty in this fate you had no hand I am sure in her death though you helpt her to her Grave And who should be a fitter Mourner at the exequies of a fair Lady than so compleat a servant of Ladies Sir I see what grace you are entertained with by them they not only love you living but are loath to part with you dead will carry you as for as they can towards the other life when they goe That if they may not have your company quite through which were a wrong to Survivors they may your funerall tears sighes or prayers for their Vltime Vale you preface a happy imprimis to this sad discourse and say having first done all that might tend to her future happiness Happy News and it ownes you I believe an instrument of good effects and offices Had all fair Ladies such faithfull servants More Idols of beauty would receive impression of the divine Image and become the servants of God And she had much reason to desire your care of her bodies enterrment that had first aided her soul with a saving Viaticum for heaven Long may you live the Author or helper of such good deeds In the interim as here was a double work of mercy Corporall and Spirituall exploited so you I am confident have made your usefull application of the Accident beheld in the blasting of this flower the fate of Fairness the frailties of the fairest Clay that feature and white and red could embelish If she were not Superlative in Beauty in beauty she had many inferiours if in fortunes not the favourite of fortune yet she has had her smiles Many Beauties have faln sooner many may sooner fade yet in her all beauties all fortunes have exprest what fortunes and beauties are what is the Exit of the Fable of this temporary life to wit ugly death eternall deprivation the cold Tomb and deformed dust Fortunate life that so contemplates mortal condition as to be indifferent and ready to change that fraile incertainties and vain glitter may be motives to assure and fix on lasting good that by others death learnes to live and lives the life that feares not death that so accompanies others funeralls as in that sable equipage to behold the mournfull Pomp of the Worlds farewell and their own destiny that reads in that earthy bed of death the Grave of others their own Motto we are dust and all mortall things Momentary Sir pardon this long slip of my pen you see how a fair Ladies death and your living pietie entrances me to the forgetfulness of other subjects I confess I am also now in a dull Mood not apt as to expression Thanks for your News on which the only present comment shall be that I am for ever Sir Your thankfull servant D.W. LXXIII The Reply relating the particulers of that Ladies death Sir SInce you have been pleas'd to sing so sweet a dirge and to make so excellent a comment upon our late funerous text I cannot think the particulers of that sad subject how confusedly soever I deliver them will be unacceptable to you This Lady was 3 moneths continually dying without any hope of recovery and this occasioned by an ulcer in her throat it was my good fortune though others had assai'd it to gain her first assent to bring a spirituall Phisitian to her Dr. G. was next at hand and did act his part exceedingly well after 2 or 3 effective visits the Patient through the comfort and ease of the spirituall Cataplasmes and emplaisters which the Doctor applied was so rapt and piously enamor'd of him as she even embrac'd him at every appearance When shee drew neer the confines of deaths kingdom she did usually ejaculate not only most pious but even eloquent or rather diviniloquent expressions as this amongst many others which heaven grant I may never forget I have said she lived long in the vanity of this World for which God hath placed mee in this bed of sorrow Were it his holy pleasure I should act over one of them again and the choice left to mee I would by the Grace of Jesus rather chose the torments of this bed and malady then have any thing to do with the Worlds vanities c Besides nothing did so much trouble her as that she had lived as she said for fear of Worldly endamagement some yeares in an outward profession that contradicted her inward perswasion The Doctor was no less taken with his Patient then she with him for I heard him say hee was never more satisfied with the manner of any persons death And I confess her exit did more tristitiate mee then did that of my own Sister the manner of it not a little both mortifying and edifying mee For to see her picture in the Anti-chamber and then go in and look upon the originall was subject enough for mortification the one being so incomparable beautifull the other so ghastly In a word the last breath she drew was Je-and in pronouncing sus she expir'd So that we may conclude as she was a great beauty living she was a greater dead For whereas corporall beauty in others dies with the body hers did not so but by a secret transition
impressions on him then an Arrow on a rock of Adamant More impure then the stable of Augaeus H. C As pensive as the night You as cruell as the Duke of Muscovia named Basilides who commanded from his subjects a tribute of Sweat and of Nightingals in the midst of Winter H Court If thou be as hot as the mount Aetna feign thy self as cold as the hill Caucasus carry two faces in one hood As ingenious Cicero could pick gold out of Ennius's dung so may His Fetters like King Agrippa's golden chain more became him then his Imperiall Dâ—adem Ka meka thee As liberall as the Sun which shines on all like Aesops Crow prankt up in borrowed feathers Descriptions HE was even ravished with contentment in beholding thâ—se goodly Pâ—â—aces where was seen an admirable Consort of Art and Nature so many Hâ—lls so well furnished within such rich hangings such most exquisite pictâ—â—es such marbles such guildings and without mountains which make a naturall Theater tapistred without Art to surpasse all workmanship forrests which seem born with the world hedges and knots curiously cut Alleys and Mazes where both eys and feet are lost Rivers which creep along with silver purlings about gardens enameld with most fragrant flowers caverns replenished with a sacred horror grotts and fountains which gently gliding contend with the warble of birds and so many other spectacles which at first sight astonisht spirits and never satiate H.C. There were Hills which garnished their proud heights with treeâ—s humble valleys whose low estate seemed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers meadows eâ—ameld with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers thickets which being lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed so too by the cheerfull disposition of many well-tuned birds each pasture stored wâ—th sheep feeding with sober security while the pretty lambs with bleating oratory craved the dams comfort Here a Shepheards Boy piping as though he should never be old there a young Sheâ—â—â—â—rdesse knitting and withall singing and her hands kept time to her voyces musick a shew as it were of an accompaniable solitariness and of a civill wildeness Neither are the gardens to be omitted which for their largeness have the face of a forrest for their variety of a Paradise Here Cypres Groves there walks with Statues Here a Sea of fountains there Swans Ostriâ—hes and other recreative creatures Mer. Ital. It is a place which now humbling it self in fallowed plains â—ow prouâ— in wel-husbanded hils marries barren woods to cultivated valleys and joyns neat gardens to delicious fountains c. Death DEath is that inconsiderable atome of time that divides the body from the soul c. Scaliger defines Death to be the Cessation of the souls functions When Hadrian asked Secundus what Death was he answered in these severall truths It is a sleep eternall the bodies dissolution the rich mans fear the poor mans wish an event inevitable an uncertain journey a thief that steals away man sleeps father lifes flight the departure of the living and the resolution of all Feltham Death had no sooner absented him from her eyes but forgetfulness drew him out of her heart When we once come in sight of the port of Death to which all winds drive us and when by letting fall that fatall Anchor which can never be weighed again the Navigation of this life takes end Then it is I say that our own cogitations those sad and severe cogitations formerly beaten from us by our health and felicity return again and pay us to the uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our lives past Sir Wa. Rawl Death deprived me of my paradized bliss and not onely made my broken heart the sad habitation of woe but also turned my mind which before was a kingdom to me into a hell of tormenting thoughts Torches made of Aromatique wood cast out their odoriferous exhalations when they are almost wasted So the vertuous A. made all the good odors of her life evaporate in the last instant of her death Thaâ— he is dead As if she now scorn'd life Death lends her cheeks his paleness and her eyes tell down their drops of silver to the earth wishing her tears might rain upon his grave to make the gentle earth produce some flower should bear his name and memory She prostrated on the body of her Lover sought in his eclipsed eyes and dead lips the remnant of her life I shall not be unwilling to suffer a goal-delivery of my soul from the prison of my body when I am called to it Delivered up to the immortality of another world This deadly shaâ—t passing through him so wounded me that I my self was arrived within few paces of the land of darkness In his silent marble the best part of that small portion of joy I had in the world but all my hopes are entombed Wats in Baa Preface Drawing neere to the confines of Deaths kingdom Deathâ—rees â—rees a man from misery and wafts him to the haven of his happiness Her As soon as Death hath played the Midwife to our second birth our soul shall then see all truths more freely then our corporall eys at our first birth see all bodies and colours Sir K.D. Desire IF you desire that I make you a picture of the nature and perquisites of Desire I wil tell you It is a strange Countrey whereunto the prodigall Child sailed when he forsook his Fathers house to undertake a banishment a Countrey where Corn is still in Grass Vines in the Bud Trees perpetually in Blossome and Birds always in the Shell You neither see Corn Fruit nor any thing fully shaped all is there onely in expectation It is a Countrey full of Figures Phantosmes Illusions and hopes which are dreams without sleep A Countrey where the Inhabitants are never without Fevers one is no sooner gone but another comes into its place There dwells Covetousness a great woman meager lean starven having round about her a huge swarm of winged boys of which some are altogether languishing others cast her a thousand smiles as she passeth along upon herself she hath an infinite number of Horse-leeches which suck upon her to the marrow Time looks on her a far off and never comes neer her shewing her an inchanted Looking-glass wherein she sees a thousand and a thousand false colours which amuse her and when she hath sported enough she hath nothing to dinner but smoke Holy Court Albeit you can no ways quench the coals of Desire with forgetfulness yet rake them up in the ashes of modesty As Pharaoh longed to know his dream so desired he to Desire the nurse of perseverance gave him wings to make the more speed Thus wishing my deserts still suitable to my desires and my desires ever pleasing to your deserts More ready in desire then able in power to serve you Then which nothing could shoot righter at the mark of my desires And wish you as full of good Fortune as I am of desire She â—â—aâ—d not 〈…〉 desires Desire is
I find not any man over vvhom he has not some advantage nor any one life vvhich take it altogether is so admirable as his The Prince He is an Anthony in clemency a Trajan in bounty and another Augustus in wisdom Though he exceeds not in those vertues which gâ—t admiration as depth of wisdom height of courage and the like yet he is notable for those qualities which stir affection as truth of word meekness courtesie mercifulness and liberality He was Lord of great Revenues to which his vertue not his fortune was his Title his mind was richly embroydered with all the studied ornaments of learning c. Heroinae Bravest A sooner shall the fathers bowels be silent at the sight of his long unseen son then posterity forget thy name Nor shall I rest content till I bring one grain of incense more to that great oblation which I hope the Muses will offer ere long in publick to his memory thereby to induce Historians those Goldsmiths of time in their elaborate rings the Chronicles and Relations of these days curiously to enchase this choycer Diamond to the delight and benefit of succeeding ages Of Sir I.S. The worth of worthiness hath his whole Globe comprised in his breast The gallantry of his mind was plainly legible to every eye that was acquainted with the characters of vertue In this man there were such great abilities of wit and understanding that into what Climate sâ—ever his nativity had cast him he seem'd to be able to command of fâ—rtune Bacon Men whâ—â—e Sentiments are Maximes and Oracles to govern the worlds beliefs and actions Sir K.D. So wel was he studied in the Art of Dying that by continuall watchings fastings prayers and such like acts of Christian humiliation his flesh was rarified into spirit and the whole man so fitted for eternall glories that he was more then halfe in heaven before Death brought his bloody but triumphant Chariot to convey him thither His head did bear the Calender of age Every man is a vast and spacious Sea His passions are the winds that swell him in disturbant waves c. Feltham A good man is like the day enlightning warming all he shines on and is always raising upwards to a Region of more constant purity then that wherein it finds the object The bad man is like the night dark obtruding fears and dimitting unwholsome vapouts upon all that rest beneath Envy her self could not detract from his worth he was learned even to an example pious up to a proverb A person that in the Hurricans of great transactions is serenely pleas'd to throw off the publick person and adopt into his tenderness and protection all that unto which worth and letters may make a claim Mr. Halls Epistle before Longinus Of the K and his letters intercepted 1645. AS a Man see but with what sagacity he writes and with what judgement see but what a clean sense he hath of things which does so overlook all his most perplexed affairs that they seem to blush they have no better difficulties See but how farre his wisdom looks into mens persons which doth so weigh them and their actions with the grains and allowance of their unworthy servile ends that he seems not more to observe then prophesie See but what an even spirit of Elegancy runs through every line vvhich beats and leaps as much in the description of his saddest condition as of his serenest fortune Insomuch that posterity will a little love his misery for her very clothing Then as a Husband do but observe how kind he is and withall how chast how full of warm expressions of love and yet how far from wanton Do but observe how he vveighs his own health by his vvives Standard every line bears a Venus in it and yet no Doves and he drives the trade of thoughts between the Q. and him with so much eagerness and yet with so much innocence in all his letters as if he meant they should be intercepted As a Christian see but what a conscience he makes of oaths esteeming them not according to the popular account as if their ceremony made them the less sacred or as too many use them in the vvorld as bracelets to their speech not as they are indeed as chains unto their souls look but how he startles at the name of Sacriledge though never so commodious a sin c. Last of all as a King see but vvhat a constant and true soul he bears to Justice vvhich none of his sad infelicities can alter A soul that vvould come off true vvere it put to Plato's triall vvho said That for a man to approve himselfe a true just man indeed His vertue must be spoyld of all her ornaments Key K. Cabinet So many excellent pens have vvritten upon his brave acts and made them so well known to all the vvorld that it vvere to bring light into day to go about to mention them H. Court He is the Pelops of wisdom and Minos of all good government Who hath not known or read of that prodigy of vvit and fortune Sir Wa. Ra. a man infortunate in nothing but in the greatness of his vvit and advancement vvhose eminent vvorth vvas such both in domestick policie forreign expeditions and discoveries in arts and literature both practick and contemplative that it might seem at once to conquer both example and imitation Mr. Nath. Carpenter Man vvho contracts in himselfe all the draughts and vvorks of the Divine hand and epitomizeth the vvhole world in his perfections and bears the most animated Character of the living God H.C. He is a noble generous and vvell-manur'd youth bears beauties ensignes in his gracious looks has that supream Divinity in his eyes as sparkleth flames able to fire all hearts and the superlative vertue of his mind transcends his outvvard figure he is vvise as most mature age valiant in resolve as fames beloved child reputaon conjoyns the masculine graces of his soul vvith lovely carriage and discreet dicourse c. Argalus and Parth. I could say much more of his vvorth vvithout flattery did I not fear the imputation of presumption and vvithall suspect that it might befall these papers of mine though the losse vvere little as it did the pictures of Q. Eliz. made by unskilfull and common Painters which by her own commandement vvere knockt to pieces and cast into the fire For ill Artists in setting out the beauty of the externall and weak Writers in describing the vertues of the internal do often leave to posterity of well-formed faces a deformed memory and of the most perfect and Princely minds a most defective representation Sir Wa. Rawl in Preface He was a man whose brave undaunted Spirit dignified his Family many stories high in the estimate of Fame The excellent endowments of his soul acknowledged even by Envy and admired by Truth together with his known propension to goodness invited me to I have been possessed with extream wonder when I consider the excellency
severall recreations When my wishes be at anchor in so secure a haven You are the Life and Being of what I onely esteem happy For the Heavens had made this the Rendezvouz where his misfortunes should meet It is a fit soyl for praise to dwel upon Thus great with child to speak You the secretary of all my thoughts Which as the Pole-star is ever in motion but never setteth This is no Benefice but a Malefice a golden snare a Carcanet of Medaea a Trojan Horse which will produce Arms He went like a Torrent whither passion transported him and where the blast of Ambition breathed More fruitfull in strong imaginations then Religious in choyce of words and polished in periods Your words are full of cunning your cunning of promises your promises of wind He is a Phaeton of pride I 'le bosome what I think She was the object of his thoughts the entertainment of his discourse the contentment of his heart My happiness being in the wane or my misfortune growing towards the full From a Window he sent his soule unto me by his eyes I remain impossibilited to do otherwise then That so I may be raised from the ground of my misery to the heaven of my desire Esteeming more this instant of glory which I enjoy in seeing you then any other happinesse saving that which is eternall To deny me this favour and give me my death is one and the same thing To wander in the America and untravelled parts of truth He led our expectation into thoughts of great relief Whetting his tender wit upon the sandy stone of her edging importunity Let purpose be made servant to more apt opportunity Him with whom compar'd I am less then a shadow If I should expatiate upon this subject I could not be held a flatterer but rather a Suffragan to Truth The onely Quint-essence that hitherto the Alchymie of wit could draw out of But then as though he had been suddenly ravish'd with divine afflation and struck into a transport he swears We utterly condeâ—n and renounce as Atalanta's Apple which retards the Race that unseasonable and childish humor of accelerating early pledges of new works Bacon Rendred in an equal felicity of expression to It comes in but Ex obliquo He died Sicca morte his own naturall death Forcibly carried away I know not by what Fate against the bent of my own Genius to Fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman that if she be too much wooed she is the further off You out-shot me in my own Bow Many strange and absurd imaginations camâ— into his mind and peopled his brain Pardon my rude expressions extorted from me by the nature of the matter This is indeed a service whereunto I acknowledge my self able to bâ—ing more zeal and good affection then any other abilities Till these late years of frenzy So we may both redime the fault passed and with the same diligence provide against future inconveniencies That every one may understand I seek not to balk any thing by silence or to cloud any thing by words Bacon Your bounty like a new Spring has reviv'd the Autumn of my years It took me up little more time then Nature uses to bestow in the production of a Mushrome a day and a night When this succeeded not I travelled in my mind over Thus like Noahs Dove vvearying my self with flying up and down and finding no rest for the sole of my foot I was at last forced to Cressy What a world of inavoidable inconveniencies did presently throng into my understanding To bury a Fly in a Sepulcher of Amber My desire to see took away my sight as it fares with those who are suddenly taken with a killing beauty or gaze upon the Sun Herb. Travels I plead guilty to unworthiness and all the imperfections you can throw upon youth or hast None can think so ill of me as I do of my self the rather that your pardon may flow freely and work a kind of miracle upon me in raising my dead thoughts to life Discovering my self nakedly to my very thoughts Be pleased therefore with your naturall benignity to admit into your peaceful solitude this a blessing which the Author alas dares not promise to himself since by himself he is judged unworthy and by others incapable of it Cressy I 'le rather doubt an Oracle then question what you deliver I will lead you through no more extravagancies lest your intreated patience turn into exotick passion Herb. Trav. You have endeavoured to make A. the Foyle that should set off your brightness and yet you prove but the cloud that darkens his light To sail in the Aegean Sea i. to be incumbred with difficulties He being a man of an early as well as an implacable malice did A. was an Actor in that Tragedy yet laid the blame on B. as the Cuckow lays her brood in other nests I will at length put an end to this tedious but that it is so necessary a discourse This if passion and interest doe not interpose will satisfie In the strength of this wel-meaning and holy kind of Error which he incur'd if any error may well deserve so indulgent a name he did Driven too too hastily on by the impulse of a kind of inordinate humility Sir Tob. Mat. Preface This which I promise shall be performed upon the price of being otherwise accounted an Infidell Let me thrive as my intents are honest When I compared that kind of descant with my plain song I found Such who have been cast over-board from Grace into the storm and tempest of a sinfull life may yet c. Intellectuals and morals I count but as the simples of the soul To such if any be I heartily wish a procul itâ— In these times wherein the Tongue and Presse assume so luxurious a latitude He came as the Italian says a buóna luna in a good hour or happy time A Cavallo a Cavallo In post hast Give me leave to fear and I heartily wish that it may be a causlesse and mistaken fear that such For divisions I speak it with depth of sadness he need not Taking this result of as an opiate to allay the fumes of all our distempers Montagu Carried away with the Whirlwind of Ambition It did after the manner of the Tartars bow shoot back from whence it came Bacon The amazed Sun hid his face behind a mask of clouds Be not too indulgent to your folly I cannot cloath my thoughts in better language The nights black mantle overspreads the sky Your language is more dubious then an Oracle Then when the Morns fair cheek had not yet lost her tears Words are airy shades they are deeds that please Your heart is not confederate with your tongue Night clad in black mourns for the loss of day The face is the Index of the mind I am but coffin to my cares As not by my assent so neither by my silence must I have any hand in the Midwifery