and the Fame of your Writings I most humbly beg your favourable Interpretation of what I have here weakly said and with all Submission imaginable cast my self at your Feet as becomes Your Graces Just Honourer and most Intirely Devoted Servant Walter Charleton From my House in Covent-Garden May 7. 1667. MADAM I Had the Honour to hear so good Solutions given by your Excellency upon divers Questions moved in a whole Afternoon you was pleased to bestow upon my unworthy Conversation that I am turning to School with all speed humbly beseeching your Excellence may be so bountiful towards my Ignorance as to Instruct me about the Natural Reason of those Wonderful Glasses which as I told you Madam will fly into Powder if one breaks but the least top of their tails whereas without that way they are hardly to be broken by any weight or strength The King of France is as yet unresolved in the Question notwithstanding he hath been curious to move it to an Assembly of the best Philosophers of Paris the Microcosme of his Kingdom Your Excellence hath no cause to apprehend the cracking blow of these little innoxious Gunns If you did Madam a Servant may hold them close in his Fist and your self can break the little end of their Tail without the least danger But as I was bold to tell your Excellence I should be loath to believe any Female Fear should reign amongst so much over-masculine Wisdom as the World doth admire in you I pray God to bless your Excellence with a dayly increase of it and your worthy self to grant that among those Admirers I may strive to deserve by way of my humble Service the Honour to be accounted Hague March 12. 1657. MADAM Your Excellencies most Humble and most Obedient Servant Huygens de Zulichem I have made bold to joyn unto these a couple of poor Epigrams I did meditate in my Journey hither where your Excellencies Noble Tales were my best entertainment I hope Madam you will perceive the intention of them through the Mist of a Language I do but harp and ghess at MOST EXCELLENT PRINCESS THe Obligations by which your Grace has eminently engaged your Servants in particular and in General the whole world or at least the Judicious and Civil part of it are so many and great that to ennumerate them to this present Age may seem a large History and to Generations to come a real Romance The happiness was so great we received the last year when we had by your Graces Permission the Honour to pay our Duties to your happy self that the Contemplation of it by your Grace's absence adds the more to our Infelicity But we shall not wholly despair to be restored to the same capacity of waiting on your Grace which we are extreamly ambitious of In the mean time presenting my Wifes most humble Service to your Grace I take the confidence to subscribe my self April 22. 1668. MADAM Your Graces very great Honourer And most Devoted Humble Servant BERKLEY MY LORD IT is not Strange to me that your Grace is pleased to surprise me with such obliging civilities which are so essential to your Nature and made customary by so many frequent Habits that it were as difficult for your Grace not to do Acts like your great self as it is for others especially in this degenerating Age to imitate yours I return your Grace my most humble Thanks for the high Honor and Favour of your Books received by my self and Son which are much to be valued by judicious Persons for the worth contained therein and rendred most Illustrious for the great Authors sake who will be much admired not only by the present Age but by all succession of Ages as long as Loyalty Sincerity and high Acts of Honour are esteemed by Men and have any attractive Power My Lord I most humbly beseech your Grace to believe me to be Berkeley-House at St. Johns April 22. 1668. Your Grace's high Honourer And most Obedient Servant BERKELEY MY LORD THe Right your Grace has to be a Supream Patron of Poesy is given you from your Affection to the Muses and the excellent merit of your own Compositions which have so many ways beautified Poesy and delighted our Theatres as they have received from your Wit if possible equal Glory with your other Gallantries and Actions which have so much honoured our Nation for this Cause I must beg your Graces Pardon that I presume to present you with this inconsiderable Poem of mine of which though I wanted not Inclination I durst not adventure a direct Dedication to your Grace with whom I had not the Honour of an Acquaintance sufficient to incourage such a boldness as also some doubt it might not deserve a Patronage from so excellent a Poet which made me rather venture its publick Dedication to this Honourable Person of my Alliance I have mentioned before my Book though this my private Address to your Grace must be my greater Ambition since you are not only a most accomplished Judge but an Author yet I presume to say that your Grace may challenge some concernment in this Poem as it treats of the past Glory of our Ancestors in which the Antiquity and Honour of your Blood could not but have a high Renown and as your Grace has scarce a Parallel in all Acts of Generosity and Nobleness so your Incomparable Lady doth no less excell in her Quality and Sex the unequal'd Daughter of the Muses besides all other her voluminous Productions which compleat the Wonder of her Name to whom I have presumed to present likewise with your Lordship a Book of my Poem as an expression to both your Graces how much you are Honoured by May 3. 1669. My LORD Your Graces Very Humble Servant Edward Howard MADAM I Owe it to your Graces singular condescention and goodness that my Letters are not displeasing and I see a great deal of Generosity in your Graces acceptance of such mean things as my slender stock of Knowledge can impart As for your Inquiry about the Plastick Faculties I Answer that they are those whereby the Body is formed at first and by which the Alimental Juices are after through the whole course of Life orderly distributed for the purposes of growth and nutrition But whether as your Grace inquires they are Faculties inherent in the Soul or are only Mechanical Motions of the Body I cannot determine certainly But I rather incline to the Platonists who will have the Soul to be the Bodies Maker and they affirm as is ordinary though with some diversity in the Names and Presentation That there are three sorts of Faculties which they Phancy as Analogous parts or Regions in the Soul Viz. The Mind so they call the highest Faculties of abstract Reason and Understanding which is the First The Second they call the Soul Viz. as it is united to the Body and exerciseth the operation of Sense The Third is the Image of the Soul which is those
Faculties that are called Plastical that move and turn the Body but are devoid of Understanding or Sense Now how the Soul which is Immaterial can manage and order Corporeal Motions is a difficulty of which Philosophy as yet hath given no account as I have particularly taken notice and proved in my Sceptis Scientifica but yet the thing ought not therefore to be denied because the manner of the most obvious sensible things is to us unknown And by this we can only prove that we have yet no certain Theory of Nature And in good earnest Madam all that we can hope for as yet is but the History of things as they are but to say how they are to raise general Axioms and to make Hypotheses must I think be the happy priviledge of succeeding Ages when they shall have gained a larger account of the Phoenomena which yet are too scant and defective to raise Theories upon so that to be ingenious and confess freely we have yet no such thing as Natural Philosophy Natural History is all we can pretend to and that too as yet is but in its Rudiments the advance of it your Grace knows is the design and buisiness of the Royal Society from whom we may reasonably at last expect better grounds for general Doctrines than any the World yet hath been acquainted with but this Madam is an excursion I therefore return to your Graces Letter which inquires some things about my Notion of the Souls Original As to this I would not be understood to affirm peremptorily a thing which the greatest part of Men neither have nor can receive only I consider it as an Hypothesis that may be taken up to satisfy those minds that are much troubled at the seeming inequalities of Providence and whether true or false this I will take the boldness to be confident in That the Doctrine of the Souls Praeexistence doth best suit with the appearances of the World And best Answers for the Divine Justice and Goodness in all the affairs of Providence In this Madam I am a little Dogmatical and this step further I think I may take without immodesty That the Doctrine hath so much to say for it self from Reason and the highest Antiquity as to render it fit to be considered and indeed since the two other wayes are confessedly desperate methinks there should be no harm in examining this which is all I pretend to But particularly to your Grace's Quaery Whether were Souls Created or Uncreated I Answer no doubt Created But then I do not see how that follows which your Grace is pleased to infer Viz. That Sin was then Created For our Souls in their State were Spotless and Innocent as the Angels of God That Mankind was so first and fell by a voluntary Transgression is the common Doctrine and how we may suppose it was particularly in the way of Praeexistence your Grace will see easily when I shall have procured that Book of mine I have mentioned and promised your Grace but cannot yet light on The other part also of your Graces Division Viz. That if those Souls were Eternal they are Gods is I humbly conceive a mistake likewise since though the World had been Created from Eternity which even the Schools confess possible it had nevertheless been a Creature by reason of its dependence upon another for its being and to have been produced and yet from Eternity is no absurdity our Faith affirms it in the Eternal Generation of the Son and Procession of the Holy-Ghost and to take an instance with which we may make more bold If the Sun had been from Eternity no doubt it would have shone Eternally and yet it's Beams had been effects and dependent And whereas your Grace saith again That what is Immaterial is a God I must here also take the boldness to enter my Dissent to your Proposition Indeed Mr. Hobbs denys all Immateriality to Created Beings but I think upon grounds precarious and unsafe That our Souls are Immaterial in their Natures hath been sufficiently proved by some late Philosophers particularly by the most learned Dr. H. Moore and I also have done something about this in my Book of Praeexistence If your Grace demands my Reasons they shall be ready at the least intimation of those commands which I shall ever account a singular Honour to observe For the antiquity of Praeexistence which your Grace rightly observes to be no certain Argument of the truth of it I humbly say I have not alledged it for a demonstration of the thing but to take off the prejudice we are apt to have against all supposed Novelties and to shew that it is not so despicable an Hypothesis but that several great minds of former times even in the Ages of the best Antiquity have owned a kindness for it and consequently that we cannot without some immodesty deny it a favourable hearing But madam I forget my self and the consideration I ought to have of your Grace's Time and Patience and therefore only add that I am Bath Octob. 13. 1667. Illustrious Madam Your Graces Most Obedient Servant Jos Glanvill MY LORD HAd I not been out of Town a great part of the last Summer and almost all this Winter I had written to your Grace long since The Town might have furnish'd me with occasions of writing that had not been impertinent For only to say that I am the humblest of your Graces Servants and that no man has a greater Honour for you than I have would be Impertinent since all that know me know it of me already and I hope your Grace believes it But my Lord the Printing of the Humourists has given me a new occasion of troubling you and desiring your Favour to be an Advocate for me to my Lady Dutchess to procure me her Pardon and a favouroble reception of that little Comoedy My Lord as long as you are so great a Mecaenas it will be impossible to defend your self from the Importunate Addresses of Poets And Poetry is in such a declining condition that it has need of such Noble Supporters as are at Welbeck Your Grace saw this Comoedy before the Sting was taken out and was pleased to approve it which is to me more than the Plaudit of a Theatre As it is it stands more in need of Pardon and Protection which I hope your Grace and my Lady Dutchess will have the Mercy to afford it I have in this Play only shown what I would do if I had the liberty to write a general Satyr which though it should really reflect upon no particular persons yet I find the Age is too faulty to endure it If for this reason I were not tyed to too great a strictness for a Poet I should not despair of presenting you with something much more worth your view than this mangled Play but all that I can do can never make any proportionable return to the favours received from you by London April 20. 1671. My LORD Your Graces most
New-Castles Closet WHat place is this looks like some Sacred Cell Where holy Hermits anciently did dwell And never ceas'd Importunating Heav'n Till some great Blessing unto Earth was giv'n Is this a Ladys Closet ' tcannot be For nothing here of vanity you see Nothing of Curiosity nor Pride As all your Ladies Closets have beside No mirrour here in all the Room you find Unless it be the mirrour of the Mind Nor Pencil here is found nor Paint agen But only of her Ink and of her Pen. Which renders her an Hundred times more fair Than they with all their Paints and Pensils are Here she is Rapt here falls in Extasy VVith studying high and deep Philosophy Here these clear Lights descend into her Mind VVhich by Reflection in her Books you find And those high Notions and Idea's too VVhich but herself no VVoman ever knew Whence she 's their chiefest Ornament and Grace And Glory of our times Hail Sacred Place To which the World in after times shall come As unto Homer's Shrine or Virgil's Tomb Hon'ring the Walls in which she made abode The Air she breath'd and Ground whereon she trod Counting him happy who but sees the Place And happier who least Relick of her has For whose Sole Inkhorn they as much would bid As once for Epicletus's they did Thus Fame shall Celebrate and thus agen The Arts shall honour her who honour'd them Whilst others who in other things did trust Shall after Death lye in forgotten Dust To the Illustrious Princess Margaret Dutchess of New-Castle on Her Incomparable Works VErtue and Wit 's great Magazine Accept an Offering to your Shrine Whose wondrous Raptures needs must raise All Souls to Poetry or Praise With such Amazement I was strook Madam when first I read your Book To see your Sex with so great Parts Treat of all Sciences and Arts As if Inspir'd i' th' Times of Old When Poetry all things foretold That Waller Denham and the Wits Who write such mighty things by fits I did expect should all at least Have sent in Presents to the Feast But that they choose to write no more Shews they re out-done and so give o're Though 't is allow'd their luck was such They did Coyne Mettle that held Touch Like Min'ralists they sprung a Vein Of Oare they could not long maintain Your Pregnant Brain does every day Spring Mines of Gold without allay The Dross you so Refine that we Only the purer Mettle see Yours is th' Elixar of true Wit Because it finds all Subjects fit Had Spencer liv'd your Works t' have seen You must have been his Fairy-Queen Great Virgil would have thought it due Not to name Dido Queen but You. And had you liv'd when Ovid writ You 'd been the Subject of his Wit He would have made a richer Piece Of you than Helen fair of Greece You 've all that 's blest in humane kind In outward form and in your mind When you with Beauty do invite Your Virtue checks proud Appetite Some Ladys think they 'r born in vain Unless they Teem your fruitful Brain Brings better issue here 's the odds They please but Men you please the Gods Strange Power 't is you Govern by What Nature asks you can deny Great Miracle in what you do That can Charm Men and Angels too Th' honour and envy of our Age That write for Gown-men and the Stage Though you speak to us in one Tongue You seem all Languages t' have known And Secrets to the World reveal As if the Gods did sometimes steal To tell you News and from above You knew all passages of Love We must conclude 't is only thence You can have your Intelligence By which our Knowledge you so raise You merit Crowns that ask but Bayes To the most Accomplish'd and Incomparable Princess The Dutchess of New Castle her Grace MAdam 't is you whom both in Form and Mind Nature has favour'd 'bove all Female kind You have been constant from the first of Youth To Friendship Justice Chastity and Truth Wit in your Childhood did begin to reign And like the Tide came flowing in amain Wherein such high Conceptions did lye As rais'd a new and true Philosophy Things Natural and Moral you have writ And both in Scenes and Poems shew'd your Wit Letters and Dialogues declare your Fame In History you Eternalize the Name Of your Dear Lord when truly you relate His Loyal Actions for the King and State All this makes you admir'd and envied too ' Cause you 've done more than any yet could do In you the Glory of your Sex do's shine And all perfections in your Soul combine What ever is thought Virtue 's found in you Your mind is high and yet 't is humble too Not Pride as Envy stiles it but a Flame More noble strives t'immortalize your Fame For you do stoop to those of low descent And with compassion to their Case resent Which Fortune Frowns upon How can there be A nobler Mind and nearer Deity Nay Fortune seeing how Nature favour'd you To her Perfections added Honour too Thus Honour Beauty Wit and Virtue joyn'd Made you the greatest Wonder of your Kind Let none presume to draw your Picture then For you surpass all th' art and Skill of Men Who e're looks on you with a stricter view Sees Natur 's chiefest masterpiece in You. To the Glory of her Sex the most Illustrious Princess the Lady Marchioness of New-Castle upon her most admirable Works NOw let enfranchiz'd Ladies learn to write And not Paint white and red but black and white Their Bodkins turn to Pens to Lines their Locks And let the Inkhorn be their Dressing-box Since Madam you have Scal'd the walls of Fame And made a Breach where never Female came Had Men no Wit or had the World no Books Yet here 's enough to please the curious looks Of Every Reader such a General Strain Would reinstruct the School-boy-world again Philosophers and Poets were of old The two great Lights that humane minds control'd The one t' adorn the other to explain Thus Learnings Empire then was cut in twain But Universal Wit and Reason joyn's To make you Queen nor can your sacred Lines Without a Paradox be well express'd Truth never was so naked nor so dress'd Majestick Quill that keeps our minds in Awe For Reasons Kingdom knows no Salique Law Or if that Law was ever fram'd 't was then When Women held the Distaff not the Pen. The Court the City Schools and Camp agree Welbeck to make an University Of Wit and Honour which has been the Stage Since 't was your Lords the Heroe of this Age Whose Noble Soul is Steward to great Parts And do's dispence his Reasons and his Arts His Wit and Power his Greatness and his Sense With as much Freedom and Magnificence As when our English Jove became his Guest And did receive a more than Humane Feast With Arts of Wit he mixes those of Force And Pegasus is his old Manag'd Horse No
thousand Cupids sigh forth mournful Airs And wish for Eyes to ease their Grief by Tears Let them their Bowes in sign of honour wave And with their Torches light her to her Grave Nor will they this attendance her deny Those Torches first were lighted at her Eye VVho now their un-arm'd Deities will dread Their Magazine is now demolished Yet did not her Muse kindle unchast Fires That Heav'nly Cupid Heav'nly Thoughts inspires No Kitchin-flames before her Beams would burn And wanton Love did to Devotion turn Thus Sol at once lifts up the Lamp of Day And warms at once and bids the Persian Pray Great Issue of Natures united Pow'rs Glory of your Sex and Disgrace of ours VVhich shall I call the greater Prodigy That you were such or being such could Dye Did Nature fear lest that thy boundless Mind For future search should nothing leave behind Or did you take this flight to Heav'n to see How it with Thy fair Model did agree Whate're the cause Joy rings through every Sphere And Heav'n more Heaven is since you came there None in it with more Native Lustre shine Or livelier do reflect the light Divine Such spotless Innocence in that Bosome lyes Eve thinks she brought you forth in Paradice For that first crime left not a lesser trace On any Breast of all her num'rous Race Excepting one whom you sit next to there Who her Creator in her Womb did bear And with her too almost you may contend What He Created you did Comprehend Blest Soul who dwellest in Essential Light Direct us lost in Ignorance and Night Whilst we with grateful Off'rings what before We all admir'd do humbly now adore Knightly Chetwood Coll. Regal Cant. In Obitum Margaretae Ducissae Novo-Castrensis BArbara iam sileat sileat quoque Graia vetustas Nec jactet fidas Itala terra nurus Hanc unam attonitum non mendax Fama per Orbem Centeno potiùs debuit ore loqui Dulcè cavâ Sapphô testudine flebat amorem Sed nec pulchra satis sed néque casta fuit Haec toto numeris animóque corpore constat Vitaetiam castis consonat ipsa modis Arsit sida suum Letho quóque Portia Brutum Caesaris at tinctus Sanguine Brutus erat Hujus dum Regem sequitur per Bella Maritus Per medios Ignes Ipsa sequuta Virum Mausolum epotum taceat Regina sub imo Viventem vivens Haec quoque corde tulit Pensile nec Tumuli jactet monumenta Mariti Duratura magis condidit isla sui Natorum numero Niobe non provocet Illam Nec specie Niobes quae Dea stravit opes Bis septem è gravido ceu Jupiter Illa cerebro Pignora dat decuit sic peperisse Deam Pignora ceu speculo totum referentia mundum Non nisi cum Mundo pignora digna Mori Ah! cur non placuit Tibi vivae Academia sedes Ceu Ducis ut jactet nomine Granta tuo Invidit sexus jam Filia non potes esse E Fama titulus nec foret ille Tuâ At dum pauperibus legâsti Scripta Camoenis Ditia dum Mammas exeris usque Tuas Nunc eniam super Astra faves Academia Mater Te Matrem posthà c est habitura suam Knightly Chetwood Coll. Regal Cantabr Vpon the Death of the Illustrious and Incomparable Lady Margaret Dutchess of New Castle 1. DEath thou hast done thy worst we dread not now The threatnings of thy angry Brow By thy last victory we 're hard'ned grown Learnt to despise thy malice scorn and frown Thy saucie Power is so great That we like Slaves are become desperate 2. Since brave New-Castles Dutchess thou hast slain We baser Mortals to complain Think it a crime dye we would rather all That so we might attend her Funeral VVait on her when her Soul takes flight Into the Mansions of Eternal Light 3. VVithin her Breast such throngs of Virtues grew That they their Prison overthrew And being vex'd at this same sottish Age VVhere dull Impertinence so much does rage Their Fetters broke they upwards hie In hopes to find there better company 4. She scorn'd those trifles which her Sex adore VVhich they vain Fools do value more Than inward worth would not like them mispend That little time which God to her did lend It was her only business here To dress her Soul and make it fine appear 5. Her pow'rful reason aw'd enticing sence Taught Rebel-thoughts Obedience VVhen stupid matter would unruly prove Instructed it more calmly how to move External Pleasures she thought Sin Compar'd with those Delights which dwell within 6. So vast a knowledge ne're was yet confin'd Within one single Womans Mind Her Fancy it was strong so great her VVit That nothing but her Judgement equal'd it When e're she spoke the winged crew Of pretty Notions streight about her flew 7. What e're she pleas'd with ease she overcame Learning before her time was lame Nature was dress'd but slovenly till she Made it so spruce by her Philosophy It heretofore in Tatters went Is grown Gentile now and can Complement 8. Had she but liv'd when blind Antiquity Call'd what it pleas'd a Deity She would have quite engross'd the Worship Trade Jove and his Kindred had been Bankrupts made They must have Starv'd without Relief Pin'd to Mortality and Dy'd with Grief 9. Rome where Divinity was sold so cheap Who Temples built on ev'ry heap Of dirt and rubbish would have quickly sent It's Mungril-Gods all into Banishment Told them 't was manners to give place To one of a more noble Heav'nly Race 10. How well did Providence her real worth Declare to th' World and set it forth When it in ties of Holy Wedlock joyn'd The best of Men to th' best of Womankind And suffer'd fair Lucasia's Charms To vanquish and subdue the God of Arms. 11. The mighty Cavendish could only prove A Husband to the Queen of Love Heav'n would have had her sooner 't was in strife Whether she should Dye first or be his Wife At length resign'd its right to show How much to his great merits it did owe. 12. What Joy above at her arrival there The Angels crowd to welcome her And big with wonder all pay Reverence Unto a Soul of so much Excellence A Soul so pure so bright all o're That they the like had never seen before To the Duke YOur pardon Sir if striving to express Perfections which in her were numberless I vainly mine own weakness do betray And show how little foolish Rhithms can pay To her vast Merits which like th' Ocean stretch And drown what e're dares come within their reach For if to tell of with due Praise her Fame And as I ought her Virtues to Proclaim She would have had me rightly understood She must have been less Worthy and less Good On the Death of the most Illustrious Princess the Lady Dutchess of NEW-CASTLE An EPITAPH SHe 's Dead and here she lies the vulgar cry Fools know not that great Wits can never