TRUE Eugenia : OR, NOBILITY'S TRANCE, FOR DEATH OF THE MOST RELIGIOUSLY NOBLE WILLIAM LORD RUSSELL,* &c. [1614.] EPISTLE DEDICATORY. ΤΟ THE MOST WORTHY AND RELIGIOUSLY-NOBLE FRANCIS, LORD RUSSELL, BARON OF THORNHAUGH, &c. BECAUSE, my most worthy Lord, worthiest men and the due estimations of their worthiness were seldom or never contemporaries, the world having always an Epimethean and after wit for the fit respect of all lasting goodness, -as a little excitement to their late considerations, I have endeavoured to set these weak watches by the memories of your most worthy lord and father; wherein whatsoever is presently defective, the anniversaries that, for as many years as God shall please to give me life and faculty, I constantly resolve to perform to his noblest name and virtues, shall, I hope, be furnished with supplies amendful and acceptable. And if the preserved memories of good men have been ever good means to inform good men, these paper memorials, that have ever outlasted brass and marble, and worn out all the barbarous rages both of sword and fire, need not appear to the world so superfluous and vain as Sir William Russell, the fourth son of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, was a person of considerable talents and enterprise. In 1580 he was knighted for his services in Ireland. He afterwards went with the Earl of Leicester to the assistance of the Dutch. His conduct at the battle of Zutphen is thus quaintly described by Stowe : He charged so terribly, that after he had broke his lance, he so played his part with his curtle-axe, that the enemy reported him to be a devil, and not a man; for where he saw six or seven of the enemies together, thither would he, and so behave with his curtle-axe, that he would separate their friendship." He was afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he made himself very conspicuous for prudence as well as valour. He took just pains to prevent the excesses of the army. He directed by his general orders that the soldiers should give money or a ticket for their diet, that there should be no charge on the country for more men than there really were; that they should not ask for more than a breakfast and supper; and that their quarters should be assigned by the civil magistrate. These regulations were well calculated to conciliate the lower orders. Had the Court taken his advice, another measure which he recommended would probably have gained over the nobility. He proposed that the lands of the church, which had been confiscated, should be given equally to the leading men of both religions. Had the Catholics accepted the spoils of their own church, it is evident they would have become attached to the government from which they had obtained them. On the accession of James, he was created Baron Russell, of Thornhaugh. He died in 1613, leaving an only son, Francis, who, fourteen years afterwards, succeeded to the title of Earl of Bedford.-The Life of William, Lord Russell, by Earl Russell. Lond. 1853, pp. 5-6. they seem, nor present men with such irksome objects as most vulgarly they do. Howsoever, nothing (God willing) shall discourage my resolution, to what, with his assistance, I have advisedly vowed. Religious contemplation being the whole scopes and settersup of my poor life's rest, what better retreat can I make from the communes of the world than to the most due memories of his rare pieties? In the mean space, let me beseech your best Lordship that for whatsoever hath now failed of the honour I intended, my serviceable and infallible love may stand accepted surety for all worthy supplement; which submitting thrice humbly to your most ingenuous and judicious disposition, I ever abide The most unfeigned vowed tributary to your good Lordship's virtues, INDUCTIO. Eugenia, or EUGENIA, seeing true noblesse | Such vanish like the sea's inflated waves true Noblesse. of no price, Nought noble now but servile Avarice, And loaded with an ominous heaviness, The house In midst of all the universe doth 'Twixt Earth, the seas, and all those tracts That are the confines of the triple world; Through whose still open gates are ceaseless hurl'd The sounds of all things breaking air in earth; Where all men's acts are seen, each death Eugenia here arrived, her sister gave Shew'd her chief rooms to her, and bade The best of those chief, and would have Each chief had divers, fit for different use, Virtue, and valour; none that purchased Thick on the wet walls. The slow crab did take Pibbles into her mouth, and ballast make The watery mountains darted at the sky. The ass, as weather-wise, confirm'd these fears, And never left shaking his flaggy ears. Th' ingenious bee wrought ever near her hive. The cloddy ashes kept coals long alive, And dead coals quicken'd; both transparent clear; The rivers crown'd with swimming feathers* were. The trees' green fleeces† flew about the air, And aged thistles lost their downy hair ;‡ Cattle would run from out their sheds undriven [given, To th' ample pastures; lambs were sprightly And all in jumps about the short leas borne : Rams fiercely butted, locking horn in horn. The storm now near, those cattle that abroad Undriven ran from their shelter, undriven, trod Homewards as fast: the large-boned oxen look'd Oft on the broad heaven, and the soft air suck'd, Smelling it in; their reeking nostrils still Sucking the clear dew from the daffodil; Bow'd to their sides their broad heads, and their hair Lick'd smooth at all parts; loved their right-side lair; And late in night, did bellow from the stall As thence the tempest would his blasts exhale. The swine her never-made bed now did ply And with her snout strow'd every way her sty; The wolf howl'd in her den; th' insatiate beast, Now fearing no man, met him breast to breast, And like a murtherous beggar, him allured; Haunting the home-groves husbandmen manured. Stooping and crooked, and her joints did crack As all the weight of earth were on her back: Her looks were like the pictures that are made To th' optic reason, one way like a shade, Poor country churches, chapels call'd of ease, For so of worldly ends men zealous were. None hundred-handed would lend one to her; Nor had they one to do so good a deed: None will do good but where there is no need. All full of spiders was her home-spun weed, Where souls like flies hung, of which some would strive To break the net, their bodies yet alive; Some (all their bodies eat) the spiders' thighs Left hanging like the only wings of flies. She cheer'd Eugenia, and would have her speak, But she with her late blood lost was so weak, She could not move a sound, believing then That she no more should live in noble men. Religion said she err'd where none would come And that grief made her miss her way at home. VIGILIA PRIMA. This cut-up-quick anatomy of yours, To whales and monsters of earth's covetous deep. They that get livings by Religion Eugenia. And worthily; for who can live Any demesnes that eats not out their and see heart? If living be the end of life's desert, A pair of tarriers to set fools a-work, Of any reason; Life is not a span; tain'd; Ambitious bubbles, holding nought within mere feign'd.‡ But only gauds and properties for sin; ["so set" in the quarto.-ED.] † Φέλλου σκίας κουφότερον. ["for a Good more fayn'd" in the quarto.-ED.] |
