Honour and Vertue Triumphing over the Grave Exemplified in a faire devout Life and Death adorned with the surviving perfections of EDWARD Lord STAFFORD lately deceased the last Baron of that Illustrious Family which Honour in him ended with as great Lustre as the Sunne sets within a serene Skye A Treatise so written that it is as well applicative to all of Noble Extraction as to him and wherein are handled all the Requisites of Honour together with the greatest Morall and Divine Vertues and commended to the practise of the Noble Prudent Reader By Anth. Stafford his most humble Kinsman This Worke is much embelish'd by the Addition of many most Elegant Elegies penned by the most accute Wits of these Times LONDON Printed by J. Okes for Henry Seile at the Tigres Head in Fleet-street over against St. Dunstans Church 1640. To my much honour'd Lord Thomas Lord Howard chief of the Howards Earle of Arundell and Surrey Earle Marshall of England Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter and one of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councell c. My very good Lord THe Fame of your Lordships Heroick Vertues invites me to present to your gracious acceptance this Treatise of which Honour is the Theam Indeed to whom more fitly can shee make her addresse then to your Lordship through whose Veins she runs from whose Bosom shee flows in whose Actions shee shines and by whose Protection shee is secured from the insolent Affronts of the Vulgar Being distressed shee makes You her faire Sanctuarie being wounded she makes you her soveraigne Balme Nay which draweth neere to a wonder many put their Honour into Your hands esteeming it more safe there then in their owne This is the first cause of my Dedication The next is that the true Child of Honour the deplored Subject of this Book was a Debtor to Your Lordship for his Education whose Advancement in Vertue Honour and Estate You made the greatest part of Your Studie And to say the Truth where could such a Guardian be found for him as Your Lordship since between the renowned Ancestours of You both Vertue and Bloud hath long since engendred a strict Friendship and between whom there was a neare similitude of good and evill Destiny both having amply shared of Infortunity and Glory I may adde that there cannot be a more lovely Sight then to behold an ancient lofty Cedar sheltring with his Branches from the Rage of weather a Young one of the same Kinde aspiring to the same Height had not the Frost of Death immaturely nipt this Noble Plant it were an Heresie to doubt that he would have flourisht under the care of a Lord whose Vertue is too immense for one Region to containe and whose Perfections are so many and so transcendent that they are able not onely to adorn these more Polisht Parts of the World but to civilize also the more Barbarous and to make an Athens of Madagascar The Oblation of my Teares and Supplications to God not availing to keep him here J have sent my Vowes after him and have given him a Funerall Equipage consisting of the Testimonies of brave good and knowing Men which will eternize him on Earth as his Goodnesse will in Heaven I confesse freely I was unwilling to leave him to the Mercy of some grosly ignorant Chronologer of the Times in whose Rubbish Posteritie might unhappily have found him lying more ruin'd then his glorious Predecessours were by the Tyranny of Time or the Cruelty of Princes Now in the last place I must most humbly beseech Your Lordship to take notice that his whole Name have made an affectionate but an imprudent Choice of me to be their weak Oratour to render Your Lordship submissive and due thanks for the Good You did or intended him and withall to make You a Religious Promise of their Prayers to God and their Prayses to Men as in particular I doe of the vowed faithfull service of Your Lordships most humble loyall Servant Anthony Stafford To the Vertuous and excellent Lady the Countesse of Arundell MADAM THE causes why I make this Dedication apart to Your Ladyship are divers The first is that sweete Lord the lamented Subject of this Booke in whose praise my Muse ending will expire like a Phoenix in a Perfume Hee was extreamly oblig'd to Your Ladyship in particular and therefore You deserve particular and infinite thankes from all of his Blood and Name of which I am one who have ever had your Vertues in admiration The second is that You Madam are none of those Romance Ladyes who make Fiction and Folly their Study and Discourse and appeare wise onely to Fooles and Fooles to the wise By reading nothing else but Vanity they become nothing else themselves They make a more diligent enquiry after the deedes of Knights and Ladies errant than after the Acts of Christ and his Apostles The losse of their time is their just punishment in that they spend a whole Life in reading much and yet is that much nothing But you Madam are capable of the most profound grave Misteries of Religion and daily peruse and meditate Bookes of Devotion You despise the bold Adventures of those Female Follies and piously surveigh the lives of the Female Saints You have render'd yourselfe a most accomplish'd Lady on Earth by imitating our blessed Lady which is in Heaven who as she was here the first Saint of the Militant Church so is she there the first of the Church Triumphant having learn't that she spent al her houres in works of Charity you trace her steps knowing that Shee and Vertue trod but one path Hence it comes that you are at no time so angry as with the losse of an oportunity to succour the distressed and that you are as indefatigable in doing good as heaven in motion Hence it is that the impetuous force of a Torrent may bee as well stopped as the constant flood of your goodnesse which never stayes till it have water'd and relieved all within its Ken commendable either for Knowledge or Vertue My third and last scope in placing your Character in the Front of this Treatise is that like a Starre it may strike a lustre throughout this Booke and by its light chase away the darknesse Oblivion would else cast upon it Questionlesse it will breede a holy emulation in any of your Sexe who shall here learne that there is a Lady whose vertues are come to the Age of Consistence and can grow no further and from whom not only her posterity but her Ancestors also receive honour They in this resembling the Morne who though she precedes the Sun receives her splendour from him Thus sweet thus excellent Madam I have received you from those who have beene truly happy in being daily witnesses of all your Words and Actions I conclude with this protestation made in me by Truth her selfe that I am so constant an honourer I had almost said an Adorer of Vertue whereever I finde it especially when
of these two should have the Precedencie but in the end give it to the Gowne in that Good Letters can instructus in the Military Discipline but Armes cannot impart the Knowledge of the Arts I may seeme to some to have dwelt too long on this weighty and necessary Argument of Honour in Generall whose pardon I crave and so proceed in my Method to treate of his Nobilitie by Race who is now my deplored Theam I am utterly void of all insight in Heraldry and therefore can write nothing in this kinde save what I have upon trust but that little I shall deliver shall be back'd with great Authorities That his Ancestors have been Dukes I am confident every man hath heard but how great in Authority and Revenue it may be all men apprehend not I am inform'd by a Knight skilfull and Excellent not only in our English but Forraigne Heraldry also that the Dukes of Buckingham have been so great that Earles have been the Stewards of their Houses and that they have disbursed eight hundred pounds yeerly old Rent in Pensions to Earles Barons Knights and Gentlemen To this worthy Testatour of their Greatnesse I shall yet adde a far greater namely the Right Honorable Henry Earle of Northampton a Lord so omniscient that he seem'd to all learned men living in his time A walking Athens In a speech of his contain'd in a Booke entituled The Arraignment of the Traitours his formall words are these It was a Monke of Henton that seduc'd the late Duke of Buckingham to the Ruine of as great a Name as any Subject in Europe excepting onely the Sirname of a King can demonstrate by which I receive a blemish and all those that descend from him This is enough for mee in that I cannot blazon Coates nor draw Pedigrees and because I am unwilling to disparage some whose Names the Staffords bore in former times and afterwards forsooke them as somwhat too obscure and low for their lofty deeds Wee have all this while dwelt in the Suburbs wee will now enter the Citie and glad our eyes with the splendour of it Imagine all the premises to bee but the Curtain which now being drawne wee will gaze on the Beautifull Piece his Life so pure and innocent to the outward sight in Gods eye who can be justified that what was said of Scipio Nassica may be applyed to him Nihil in vita nisi laudandum aut dixit aut fecit Through his whole Life he never did or spake any thing that was not commendable The first care of his Excellent Parents was to let him know there was a God that made him and they taught him by gesture to acknowledge this Truth ere hee could by speech The erection of his eyes and Hands spake for him ere his Tongue could To learne the Arts and Sciences requires a convenient Ripenesse of Age but it fares not so with Religion which is to be suck'd in with the Mothers or Nurses Milke A Vessell reteines long the sent of that wherewith it is first season'd and therefore hee was taught to name and know his Heavenly Father before his Earthly When he came to have the use of speech hee was instructed every morning with an humble heart and in a submissive phrase to crave the conduct and safeguard of God for that Day and in the same lowly Language to implore his Almighty protection for the ensuing Night Then was hee carried into Gods sacred Temple there to offer up prayers and Vowes due to his Maker True it is that we not only see but handle God in his Creatures but we no where speak univocally and unanimously to him nor hee at all to us but in his Church And that hee might judge of Religion and Goodnesse aright these his solicitous Parents gave him a learned Education for though Learning be not the Adaequate Cause of Vertue that being Assuefaction in Goodnesse yet that it is the Adjuvant all men not Contentious will easily grant Some there be who affirme that Vertue cannot be taught because though the Intellect may be informed of the true forme of Vertue yet the Will by this Instruction cannot be made flexible Experience proving to us that many profoundly Learned are withall damnably Wicked But this falls out by accident when Science meets with a perverse and depraved Nature If we consider Learning in it selfe wee shall finde that though it doe not necessarily engender Vertue yet it moves and enclines the Will to embrace it To this alludes that of Ovid Didicisse fideliter Artes Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros There are many forcible convincing Reasons why a learned man is more apt to follow Vertue then an unlearned Amongst many other I will onely produce four The first is that by studying the Arts and Sciences the thoughts of man are averted from dwelling on corporeall things the ordinary objects of his Affections and by that means the occasions are cut off that usually allure him to be enamour'd on Vice Secondly he who is a curious searcher into the Nature and causes of things judgeth of them aright and esteemes them as they are Hence it comes to passe that he magnifies things truly great and contemnes those equally base and is nothing at all moved with such Events as in the Vulgar beget Terror and Astonishment Thirdly through the Knowledge of things Naturall and Supernaturall hee discernes many causes why wee should adhere to Vertue and detest Vice For hee who understands the Nature and Excellencie of God will desire to be like him and hee who knows that God hath created all things under the Sunne for him will be enflam'd with a divine love towards him and approve himselfe gratefull and serviceable to this his Heavenly Benefactour Likewise hee who espies in the bruite creatures themselves Images of Vertues in some that of Fortitude in others that of Temperancie and Chastitie in all an Instinct and Industry in undergoing those Offices they are made for and which are proper to them will easily be induced to thinke it a shame and dishonour to him if he having the use of Reason and having the stampe of the Deity upon him should be found defective in his Duty Fourthly and lastly Learning layes before us the true Forme of Vertue and furnisheth us with Examples of brave accomplish'd men with the rewards and Glory they purchas'd by their Perfections and on the contrary the ignominious and horrid ends of such as have liv'd and died mancipated to their owne sordid enormous Imperfections the Meditation whereof will render a knowing man an Admirer of Goodnesse and a loather of Wickednesse They who are so obstinate as to reject these Reasons in favour of Good Letters will surely be ore-borne and have their Judgements rectified and reform'd by the Authoritie of great Men who have declared themselves Fautours of Erudition This Example of Alexander subjecting himselfe to bee the Disciple of Aristotle shall bee the Leader
sinking of a Line Move one yeares haste to sow in Hymen's bed Some seed which when thou ere mer't gathered In living buds might fresh and growing save The Grand-sire trunke from rotting in a grave But since the closing of thine eyes alone Wink's many glorious Tapers into none We waile thy death more thy Virginity We lose in that in this posterity Thy soule might still have liv'd in others breath Whose single life is now a numerous death Io. Castillion On the most immature Death of the late young Lord Stafford the last Baron of that Family WHat Nemesis what envious fate Still waites on those who antedate Their yeares by vertue and behind Cast slow pac't age with swiftest mind So 't is wise nature shortest day Allowes to things which post away The long liv'd Olive tree of peace And Lawrell slowly doe increase But the early pledge of Spring The Primrose soone is withering So Ceres oft with too much haste Her yellow dangling lockes doth waste And having rose too soone from bed Before night hangs her drowsie head O see what hopes which raisd were high To aggravate our misery Now blasted as a starre which shone New shot from Heaven are flit and gone Have you seene a Pine tree proud Her head invested in a cloud Which the fatall axe hath throwne Or the giddy whirlewind blowne Whilst th' Hamadryades with floods Of teares doe drowne their mournfull woods And Sylvan his espoused Queene Laments faire hopefull fresh and greene Have you seene a vessell trim Vpon the smiling Sea to swim Whose sayles doe gently swell with aire Of many a Merchants zealous prayer O never ship with greater pride Did on a watry mountaine ride But strait a blustring storme doth rise And dasheth her against the skies Then on a rocke her glory teares No shrikes nor cryes nor clamours heares Or have you seene but newly borne The rosy-finger'd fairest morne Whilest the sprightfull Satyres play And leape to see the golden ray But then a sullen cloud this light Turn's to a darke and dismall night These were Emblems of thy fall Noblest Stafford so I 'de call Vertue by this name she 's knowne And t is more proper then her owne But which deeper wounds with thee Dy'd thy stem and Baronie As that Nymph which by the Pine Liv'd and with the same doth life resigne When the Deluge did deface The booke of nature humane race Reprinted was and found supply From the floating Library But of Stafford w' have lost all Both transcript and originall Onely some margent notes are left To tel's of what we are bereft Here multa desunt which to fill Passeth the learned Criticks skill But as in ruin'd abbyes we Admire their faire deformity And doe build up thoughts from thence To reach the first magnificence So yet of Staffords house doe stand Some sacred reliques which command Our rev'rence and by these we see What was his noble Pedigree Whose earthly armes inter'd doe ly But soule plac't in th' aetheriall skie Shines with star-blaz'd nobility Charles Mason On the Death of the Right Honorable Lord the Lord STAFFORD being the last of that Noble Family VNseasonable Fate vexe not our sence With Balefull sorrowes due forty yeares hence Must Stafford needs expire at twenty foure Because in goodnesse onely he 's three score So have we seene the morning Sun to lay His glory downe and make a rainie day Trust me ye Destinies it was unjust So soone to lay his honour in the dust But we doe fixe our sorrowes as upon A private fate when 't is a publicke one And weepe alas as yet but with one eye If but for one we weepe why here doth lie Not my Lord onely but a Family No no! he 's but the Center-point from whence Our grones and sighes fetch their Circumference Here we must teach our eye to drop a teare Even for the losse of those who never were Griefes mysterie we must for those be sad Who lose a being which they never had Must ye your selves O Parcae women prove In that the greenest of our fruites ye loue Fruites which not cropt had thriv'd into a Tree Of a large branching Geneologie Ye might have seaz'd some puling witlesse Heire And made a younger Brother 't had beene faire And we had Praise and kist those bloody palmes Which in the killing this gave to'ther Almes But you will no such spotted sacrifice Such please not yet for such are in your eyes Are neither good for earth nor yet for Heaven Stafford must onely make your weeke-Bill even He 's good and therefore ripe thus still we finde That good wares first goe off bad stay behinde Will. Wallen Coll. Joan. Soc. Vpon the Death of the young Lord STAFFORD VNequall nature that dost load not paire Bodies with soules too great for them to beare As some put extracts that for soules may passe Still quickning where they are in frailer glasse Whose active gen'rous spirits scorne to live By such weake meanes and slight preservative So high-borne mindes whose dawning 's like the day In torrid climes cast forth a full noone-ray Whose vigorous brests inherit throng'd in one A race of soules by long succession And rise in their descents in whom we see Entirely summ'd a new borne Ancestry These soules of fire whose eager thoughts alone Create a feaver or consumption Orecharge their bodyes lab'ring in the strife To serve so quicke and more then mortall life Where every contemplation doth oppresse Like fits o' th Calenture and kils no lesse Goodnesse hath its extreames as well as sin And brings as vice death and diseases in This was thy fate great Staffords thy feirce speed T' outlive thy yeares to throng in every deed A masse of vertues hence thy minutes swell Not to a long life but long Chronicle Great name for that alone is left to be Call'd great and 't is no small Nobility To leave a name when we deplore the fall Of thy brave stem and in thee of them all Who dost this glory to thy race dispence Now knowne to Honour t' end with Innocence Me thinkes I see a sparke from thy dead eye Cast beames on thy deceast Nobility Witnesse those marble heads whom Westminster Adores perhaps without a nose or eare Are now twice raised from the dust and seeme New sculp't againe when thou art plac't by them When thou the last of that brave house deceast Hadst none to cry our Brother but the Priest And this true riddle is to ages sent Stafford is his Fore-father's Monument Richard Godfrey On the untimely Death of the Lord STAFFORD NOt to adorne his herse or give Him another age to live Need we to pretend at wit His worth hath intercepted it Whose every vertue doth require A Muse that onely can admire Death though he strove his utmost fear'd He could not take him unprepar'd H' had ripenesse in his Infancy And liv'd well in Epitomie Of what we hop'd in others he At th' same age had maturity
But he is dead we may outdare Death now as having nought to feare The world hath lost her chiefest blisse Heaven the onely gainer is One blow hath kil'd more then the plague and we In losing one have lost plurality A sense might have beene better spar'd your price We would have thought too but a sacrifice Such as was I saacks Ram that sav'd in one Iust Patriarch a generation One star we may see shoot without a grone But should we lose a constellation 'T would puzzle Astrologie nay almost By losing one your science would be lost Fate 's wisdome see that he might leave our tast In rellish he cut off your choycest last H. B. Vpon the Death of my Lord STAFFORD the last Baron of that Ancient Stocke GRieve not ye Sacred Ancestours of Fame As if this were the carcasse of your Name The Barke now flourishes we may presume He 's planted and not buryed in the Tombe Your famous branches by his fall are blowne His fate becomes your Resurrection Good deeds were all his Progeny whilst he Leaves them no other state but memory The Titles and Revenues let them hoord That doe delight to heare these words My Lord In Stafford I confesse they bore some weight Cause they spoke him as well as this estate It was his Name not Title and that tone Made him not famous onely better knowne Deserts well plac'd shine more It is a tie And reverence to Vertue to be high Should the Sunne falling to the earth fixe here Hee 'd suffer an eclipse from his owne sphere Sure to prevent that old and glorious itch He dy'd before the age of being Rich No Lands was ever he possess'd of save That small unhappy portion of a grave Death did deliver him we may be bold To stile it his redemption from Gold Wealth is a sinne though us'd and to be free Yet never want is but kind usury He was so witty yet sincere that we Dare say he meant ev'n an Hyperbole He could not flatter what he spake was knowne No complement but an expression Postures in him were Vertues for when he Did bend it was not pride but charitie His hat went off so honestly we may Affirme he onely did himselfe betray Not like to those that study the Court stride And learne the decent stitch on the left side He nothing to the streame o' th' Time did owe The Staffords manners from themselves still flow We must despaire thy equall unlesse he Could with thy Titles too inherit thee H. R. On the Death of the Right Honorable Edward Lord Stafford WHen brave Heroick spirits flie from hence That govern'd others by their influence Each Muse with Cypresse crownd instead of Bayes Makes them the subject of their teares and prayes Who were examples living being dead With living Monuments are honoured When other's course earth doth neglected lye That liv'd as if they onely liv'd to die But with what Marble or what Brasse shall we Honour the Noble Staffords memory Whose very Name inscrib'd would lustre give Enough to make those dead materials live The glorious minde dwelt in his Noble brest Did entertaine each Vertue for its guest And what soe're was opposite and foule For ever banisht from his Christan soule He was as good as great and taught the Time By what safe steps men might to Honour climbe Yet ventrous death with his impartiall Darts Hath disunited those his different parts Whilst th' earth doth his more richer earth containe What came from Heaven is thither flowne againe E. B. Medii Templi On the deplored Death of Edward Lord Stafford the last Baron of his Name STay Death and heare a short plea we would crave Onely the mercy of a single grave And that at one stroke thou wouldst kill but one In him thou slayst a generation Then ere thou strikst Death know thy sin for this Not a plaine Murder but Massacre is Compendious slaughter of a Family What yet unknowne Plague shall we title thee What Power art thou what strange Influence That thus usurpst the spleene of Pestilence Can the Grave propagate that there should be As yet a new kinde of mortality Sure I mistake our misery this was not That which we call disease but a Chaine-shot Death hath foregone his Archery and Dart And practises the Canon that dire Art Of murdering by the hundreds Thus alone We lose not Stafford but a Legion Take a friends counsell yet grim fate and stay Doe not bereave thy selfe of future prey Let him survive to a large Progenie Which will be but a number that must dye Visit some Friery there thy wrath expresse There where Religion is barrennesse That were a thrifty cruelty and to save This Youth were mercy would enrich thy grave Cheate not our hopes thus riddling Destiny When we did pray Stafford might multiply As numberlesse as are the sands there 's none Meant such a fatall propagation His owne dust for an Off spring our best prayers Forbid such sad increase Atomes for Heires Howere be not so speedy gods but give Him breath till he has taught us how to live Must we thus wholly lose him and such worth Ere in Example he can bring it forth And must this be his period cannot we Expresse a man beyond his Elegie And Epitaph can we pen History What if long-liv'd this little one would be Where is your Art Genethliakes who dare From the Brachygraphy of some Prophet starre Transcribe the life of every birth if Fate And your great skill be such Death comes too late To prejudice your knowledge and you can When he has seiz'd the Corps reprieve the Man And pen him a long-liv'd Example though He had beene borne a livelesse Embryo I pray goe calculate and tell us then What Stafford in his ripe yeares would have been Describe him at some Canon guarded Hill Leading his daunted Generall and we will Lessen our present despaire into feare And tremble lest our Stafford should fall there Then prosecute your story till his yeares List him among the graver headed Peeres And in the bustle of some fcard-state-rent Let 's heare him tutoring a Parliament Alas such thoughts but aggravate our crosse Instead of comfort summing up our losse Cease then all prattle with the Grave and Herse Silence suites better then the saddest Verse Ri. Paynter Ioan. Ox. To the Memory of the Right Honorable the Lord STAFFORD the last Baron of his Family Great soule of Stafford T Was not for want of Merit that thy Herse So long hath lack'd it's tributary Verse Things whose fraile mem'ry scarce outlives the time Their Elegies a reading may have a Rime In halfe an houre flung on them Earthen plate 'S fram'd at a turne when the rich Porcelane's date Is a full Age Raptures that doe befit Objects of wonder are the fruites of Wit And choice not Fury This kept Phaebus Quire Silent so long that nought but hallow'd fire And purest gums might crowne thine Vrne yet still They find thy
give their winking o're You doe no hurt there 's more to shine Which else perhaps had not beene seene Or if we take them All away We shall be blam'd no more than day But if we put out the Sunnes light We may bid the whole World Good-Night Not meerely 'cause it is the Sunne But chiefely 'cause it was but One For had we Two who could repine Though One did Set so One did shine Thus stands it with thee death and us That hast affronted the state thus Could not one House suffice nay Towne But must you pull our None-such downe Could your transcendent Envie ayme Not at the Person but the Name Must Stafford dye True States-men say That even Kingdomes have their day Nor dare Iavouch they erre A Kingdome 's a Particular A Name 's Eternall and a Race Is bound to neither Time nor Place Now therefore thinke what thou hast done And burst thou foolish Sceleton Sithence we shall beleeve your spite Not your Power infinite For though here lyes the Corps of Stafford dead His Name and Epitaph can't be Buried Io. Goad Ioan. Ox. On the much lamented death of the Lord STAFFORD A Name too great for numbers fit for those Let loose their eyes and weepe as 't were in prose And yet a theame too vast for eyes here The greatest thing lamented is the Teare And when we have sate up to hang the Herse We can't be thought to weep our Lord but verse So great that we but tole his flame and chime His gloryes growing Sextons but in Ryme Who when he is deliver'd best will beare A fame like moderne faces blotted faire Whom we conceale in phrase so vast a Taske We write him to a beauty in a maske Though he might blow a quil to vers whil'st men Envie to see the Poet in the Pen For who can thinke in Prose a man so cleere His thoughts did suffer sight and soule appeare That he that searcht his hearty words might find That breath was th' exhalation of his mind Such faith his tongue did weare you might have vow'd He spoke his brest only thought alowd You might his meaning through his blood have spyde Too pure deform'd dissembling to hide As to his Virgin soule Nature had drawne In so refined flesh a Vayle of Lawne So was he borne cut up that now we cou'd Learne vertues from the Doctrine of his bloud Which we might see preach Valtur and espye His veine to make an Auditor of the Eye And runne conclusions for from hence we try'd Which was a flood of valour which just Tyde Learning from his wise heat that in an Ill A spirit might couragiously sit still That one might dare be quiet and afford To thinke all mettall lyes not in the sword And Cutlers make no mindes Armour no doubt Does well but none can be inspir'd without So did her chide the Flame o th' wilder youth That fights for Ladyes hayre or lesse their truth His blood discreetly boyl'd did make it cleere It is the minde makes old and not the yeere That we may prompt his stone to say lyes here Stafford the Aged at his foure-teenth yeere Io. Howe Sacred to the Memory of the Right Honourable the Lord STAFFORD being the last Baron of his Name T' Is high Presumption in us that are The feete so almost excrement to dare Turne eyes and weeape a puddle rivulet Over thy herse which Nobles have beset We teem'd too fast and too much issue had That let us blood as rules of Physick bad But this gnawes our land's heart Nobilitie And is more cruell in Epitomie By making us in this one Staffords fall To celebrate the exequies of all Why wouldst thou yeeld so soone to death alas Thou hast too speedily finisht thy race Thou ought'st not pretty flowre have hung thy head Till thou wast ripe and blown hadst scattered Some seedes about thy bed where in a shade Thou mightst have slept by thy sonne-flowers made When with strong bulwork of posterity T' hadst fortify'd thy decay'd Ancestry Built up thy ruin'd house allay'd our feares And wert foure-score as wel in sons as yeares O then and not til then thou shouldst have tri'd Whether our tender love would let thee'ave di'd Tho. Snelling of S. Iohns Oxf. On the memory of the late Lord STAFFORD HAdst thou stood firme our eyes had yet bin dry Not in their Vrnes but in thy brest did lye All thy stockes honour Memphis never knew Amongst her wonders Pyramid like you Stately how ere great families they shroud And scepter'd lines yet farre beneath a cloud With pearly drops that all may cleerely see Thou wast the jewell of Nobility We cannot hope that our distracted cryes Will please amongst their well-tun'd harmonies Our Elegies not weepe but are to be Wept at and want themselves an Elegie Yet frowne not on our verse and teares of jet Ah never any sorrow truer let Who can but sluce his heart throughout his eyes When Youth Nobility Hope Stafford dyes I summe not up thy beauty comelinesse Nor thousand graces which thy soule did blesse For like to gamesters whom their lucks have crost We feare to know the utmost we have lost Thou didst not by Example States false glasse Dresse thy behaviour and thy life's face Nor wast sufficient ground that thou shouldst do This vice because Lord such a one did so Thy eyes when once had but a point let in Of lust the other spying the little sinne Would send a visive ray as messenger To tell that if it would not drop a teare And quench that sparke he would not his mate dwell Then wept the sinfull eye and all was well Thus each part just as in Philosophie Would Rule and Maxime to the other be O what disease then shall we wish may meete With that disease which took away this sweete That envious disease and which out-vies Even the Pestilence in cruelties For that mongst hundreds true its poyson thril'd But they were troope and so ill humour spil'd Thou in few yeares couldst such a height attaine Orelook'd the hills and peer'd above the raine Our teares are too too low and watry eyes Doe leese themselves in search of such a rise The losse was ours thy Pyramid did grow Still broad nigh heaven decreas'd to us below The Vertues built thee and the graces came And with all sweetnesse polished thy frame Honour thy Mistresse there with glorious hand Full often made her splendid impresse stand For she lov'd Stafford each adoring eye In thee insculpt read all nobility So wert thou to the world hy heaven lent The life of new old vertues monument Thy soule was large and able to containe More than the worthes of many ages gaine The Vertues of thy Ancestors all knit Could not it fill were proud to enter it And thou encreasd'st that happie stock so well As who will reckon all the starres may tell Of heaven which hath it and us rob'd in spite Or feare that they should be