ing us his unworthy servants with so gracious a Soveraigne, adding unto his royall crowne the highest tytle of majestie and earthlie dignitie; graunt, thou Most of Might, (Almightie King!) that our dread Soveraign JAMES, the first of that name of these three united kingdoms, England, France, and Ireland; and of Scotland the sixt; maye be so directed and governed by thy Almightie hand, that he may rule his several kingdoms in peace, to thy glory: raigne in tranquility Nestor's yeeres to our comfort; and, in the end, dye in thy favour, to live againe in glory with his æternized sister, divine ELIZA. Thus, not dreading your kinde acceptance of my love, I humblie take my leave.

Your worship's most obsequious

HENRY PETOWE."

THE INDUCTION.

I that obscure have wept till eyes be drye,
Wil teach my pen another while to weep,
Obdurate hartes that they may mollifye,
For losse of her that now in peace doth sleep.
Peace rest with her, but sorrowe with my pen,
Till dead Eliza doth revive agen,

Amongst high sp'rited paragons of wit,

That mount beyond our earthlie pitch to fame,
Creepes forth my Muse; ye great ones, favour it ;
Take her not up; alas! she is too tame.

Shee'l come to hand, if you but lure her to you,
Then use her kindly, for shee'l kindly woo you.

And if this infant of mine artlesse braine,

Passe with your sweet applause, as some have done,

And meane good favour of the learned gaine,
For showring teares upon Eliza's tombe;

My Muse shall hatch such breed, when she's of yeres,
Shall bring you comfort, and dry up your teares.

The last of many, yet not the least of all,

Sing I a heavie dirge for our late Queene ;
And, singing, mourne Eliza's Funerall,
The E per se of all that e're hath beene.

She was, she is, and evermore shall bee

The blessed Queene of sweet eternitie.

With her in heaven remaines her fame; on earth
Each moderne poet that can make a verse
Writes of Eliza, e'en at their Muse's birth:
Then why not I weepe on Eliza's herse?

Somewhere in England shall my lines go sleep,
Till England read, and (England reading) weepe.

The poem thus commences, and contains some passages that are not wholly unpoetical.

ELIZA'S FUNERAL.

Then withered the primrose of delight,

Hanging the head o're sorowe's garden wall; When you might see all pleasures shun the light, And live obscuer at Eliza's fall,

Her fall from life to death; oh! stay not there,

Though she were dead, the shril-tong'd trump of Heaven

Rais'd her again; think that you see her heere,

E'en heere, oh where? not heere, shee's hence bereaven, For sweet Eliza in elizium lives,

In joy beyond all thought. Then, weepe no more, Your sighing weedes put off, for weeping gives, (Wayling her losse) as seeming to deplore

Our future toward fortunes-mourne not then:
You cease awhile-but now you weepe agen.

Why should a soule in passion be deny'd

To have true feeling of her essence misse ? My soule hath lost herself, now deified,

I needes must moan her losse, tho' crown'd with blisse. Then give me leave, for I must weepe awhile,

Till sorrow's deluge have a lower ebbe :

Let lamentation never finde a stile

To passe this dale of woe, untill the webbe, Appointed for my latest mourning weed,

Be spun and woven with a heavie band; Then will I cease to weepe, I will indeed, And every beating billowe will withstand.

'Twill not be long before this web be spun,

Dy'd blacke, worne out, and then my teares be done.

Of April's month, the eight and twentith day,

M. sixe hundred and three by computation,

Is the prefixed time for sorowe's stay;

That past-my mourning weedes grow out of fashion.

Shall I by prayer hasten on the time?

Faine would I so, because mine eyes are drie; What cannot prayers doo for soules divine,

Although the bodies be mortallitie?

Divine she is for whom my Muse doth mourne,
Though lately mortall, now she sits on hie,
Glorious in heaven, thither by angells borne,
To live with him in bliss eternally.

Then come, faire day of joyfull smiling sorrow,
Since my teares dry, come happie day to-morow.

Yee herralds of my heart, my heavie groanes,

My teares which, if they could, would showre like raine;

My heavie lookes, and all my surdging mones,
My moaning lamentations that complayne,
When will you cease? or shall paine, never ceasing,
Seaze on my heart? oh, mollifie your rage,
Least your assaults, with over-swift increasing,
Procure my death, or call on tymeles age.
She lives in peace, whome I do mourne for so;

She lives in heaven, and yet my soule laments.
Since shee's so happie, I'le converte my woe;
To present joy turne all my languishments;

And with my sorrowes see the time doth wast,
The day is come, and mid-day wel nigh past.

Gaze, greedy eye; note what thou dost beholde,
Our horizon is of a perfect hew,

As cleere as christall, and the day not olde,

Yet thousand blackes present them to thy view.
Three thousand and od hundred clowds appere
Upon the earthly element belowe,

As blacke as night trampling the lower sphere,
As by degrees from place to place they goe.
They passe away: oh, whither passe they then?
Into a further climate, out of sight,

Like clowds they were, but yet like clowded men,
Whose presence turn'd the day to sable night.

They vanish thence: note what was after seene→→
The lively picture of a late dead Queene.

Who, like to Phoebus in his golden car,
Was the bright eye of the obscured day;
And though her glorious prograce* was not far,
Yet, like the smiling sunne, this semblance lay,
Drawne in a jetty charriot vayl'd with blacke,
By four faire palfraies, that did hang the head,

1* Progress.]

As if their Lady-mistris they did lacke,
And they but drew the figure of the dead.
Oh, yee spectators, which did view that sight!
Say, if you traelie say, could you refraine
To shed a sea of teares in Deathe's despight,
That reft her hence, whom Art brought back againe?
He that knew her, and had Eliza seene,

Would swear that figure were faire England's Queene.

"Faire England's Queene, e'en to the life, tho' dead;"
Speake, if I write not true, did you not crye?
Cry foorth amaine? and say-" Her princely head.
Lay on a pillowe of a crimson dye,

Like a sweet beauty in a harmless slumber :—
She is not dead: no, sure, it cannot be."
Thus with unlikely hopes the vulgar number
Flatter themselves :-(oh, sweet lyv'd flatterie ?)
Indeed, a man of judgment would have thought,
Had he not known her dead, but seene her so
Tryumphant drawne, in robes so richly wrought,
Crowne on her head, in hand her sceptre to;

At this rare sight he would have sworn and said-
To parliament rides this sweet slumb’ring maid.”

But that my warrant's seal'd by Truthe's one* hand,
That in her counterfeit† Art did excell;

I would not say, that in this little land

Pigmalion's equal doth admired dwell,

Enough of that and now my teares are done;
Since she that dy'd lives now above the spheres:

Luna's extinct; and now beholde the sunne,
Whose beames soake up the moysture of all teares.
A phoenix from her ashes doth arise,

A King, at whose faire crowne all glory ayms.

• [own.]

+ [i. e. resemblance, likeness.]