death, diverse more CHARACTERS, and NEWES, written by himselfe and others his friends. Howsoever, they are now exposed, not onely to the judicious, but to all that carry the least scruple of mother wit about them.
Licet toto nunc Helicone frui----Mar.
ELEGIES OF SEVERALL AUTHORS,
UPON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF
SIR THOMAS OVERBURIE.
WOULD ease our sorrows, 'twould re
Could we but heare those high celestiall
Once tune their motions to a dolefull straine,
In sympathy of what we mortals plaine:
Or see their faire intelligences change
Or face or habit, when blacke deeds, so strange,
As might force pitty from the heart of hell,
Are hatcht by monsters, which among us dwell.
The stars me thinks, like men inclinde to sleep,
Should through their chrystall casements scarcely
Or at least view us but with halfe an eye,
For feare their chaster influence might desery
Some murdering hand, oaded in guiltlesse blood,
Blending vile juices to destroy the good.
The sunne should wed his beames to endlesse night,
And in dull darknesse canopy his light,
When from the ranke stewes of adult'rous brests,
Where every base unhallowed project rests,
Is beleht, as in defiance of his shine,
A streame might make even death it selfe to pine.
But these things happen still, but ne're more cleare,
Nor with more lustre did these lamps appeare;
Mercury capers with a winged heele,
As if he did no touch of sorrow feele,
And yet he sees a true Mercurian kill'd,
Whose birth his mansion with much honour fill'd.
But let me not mistake those pow'rs above,
Nor tax injuriously those courts of Jove:
Surely, they joy to see these acts reveal'd,
Which in blind silence have beene long conceal'd;
And Vertue now triumphant, whilst we mourne
To thinke that ere she was foule Vices scorne:
Or that poore Over-buries bloude was made
A sacrifice to malice and darke shade.
Weston, thy hand that Couvre-feu Bell did sway,
Which did his life to endlesse sleep convay.
But rest thou where thou art; Ile seeke no glory
By the relation of so sad a story.
If any more were privy to the deed,
And for the crime must be adjudg'd to bleed,
To heaven I
with heav'd pray, up That as their bodies fall, their soules may rise:
And as those equally turne to one dust,
So these alike may shine among the just,
And there make up one glorious constellation,
Who suffered here in such a differing fashion.
D. T.
TO THE MEMORY OF THE GENERALLY
BEWAILED GENTLEMAN, SIR
UT that w'are bound in Christian piety
To wish Gods will be done; and destiny, (In all that haps to men, or good, or ill) Suffer'd, or sent, by that implored will;
Me thinks, t'observe how Vertue drawes faint breath,
Subject to slanders, hate, and violent death,
Wise men kept low, others advanc'd to state,
Right checkt by wrong, and ill men fortunate;
These mov'd effects, from an uninoved cause,
Might shake the firmest faith; Heavens fixed laws
Might casuall seem, and each irregular sense
Spurne at just order, blame Gods Providence.
But what is man, t' expostulate th' intents
Of his high will, or judge of strange events?
The rising sun to mortall sight reveales
This earthly globe; but yet the stars conceales;
So may the sense discover naturall things;
Divine above the reach of humane wings.
Then not the fate, but Fates bad instrument
Doe I accuse in each sad accident:
Good men must fall: rapes, incests, murders come;
But woe and curses follow them by whom:
God authors all mens actions, not their sin,
For that proceeds from dev'lish lust within.
Thou then that suffer'dst by those forms so vile,
From whom those wicked instruments did file
Thy drossie part, to make thy fame shine cleare,
And shrine thy soule in heavens all-glorious sphere;
Who being good, nought lesse to thee befell,
Though it appear'd disguis'd in shape of hell;
Vanish thy bloud and nerves; true life alone
In vertue lives, and true religion,
In both which thou art deathlesse; O behold,
(If thou canst looke so low as earths base mold)
How dreadfull justice (late with lingring foot)
Now comes like whirlewind! how it shakes the root
Of lofty cedars; makes the stately brow
Bend to the foot! how all men see that now
The breath of infamy doth move their sailes;
Whiles thy deare name by loves more hearty gales
Shall still keep wing, untill thy fames extent
Fill ev'ry part of this vast continent.
Then you the Syre of this thus murther'd sonne,
Repine not at his fate; since he hath wonne
More honour in his sufferance: and his death
Succeeded by his vertues endlesse breath.
For him, and to his life and deaths example,
Love might erect a statue; Zeale a temple:
On his true worth the Muses might be slaine,
To die his honours web in purest graine.
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