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Upon the DEATH of

LORD HASTINGS.

MUS

UST noble Haftings immaturely die,
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding-fheet?

1 There is fome fancy in this poem, but many of the lines are bad, and the images too grofs both in defign and expreffion to have escaped our author in his riper years. However, he was not quite eighteen when he wrote it; and, by reprinting it, the reader may trace the progrefs of that genius which afterwards arrived at fuch fublimity. The nobleman herein lamented, was ftiled Henry lord Haftings, fon to Ferdinand earl of Huntingdon. He died before his father in 1649, being then in his twentieth year. He had from na ture and education, a most amiable difpofition, a strong judgment, and fo refined a taste, that, according to Collins's peerage, not less than ninety-eight elegies were compofed on his death.

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Muft

1

Muft virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?

Is death, fin's wages, grace's now? fhall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;

To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himfelf to difcipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? study felf-murder deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dunces fecurely, ignorant healthfully.

Rare linguist whofe worth fpeaks itself, whofe praife,
Tho' not his own, all tongues befides do raise:
Than whom great Alexander may feem lefs;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations fpake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.

His native foil was the four parts o' th' earth ;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apoftle; and with rev'rence may
I fpeak it infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Nature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft ftrive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul

Did move on virtue's, and on learning's pole:
Whose reg'lar motions better to our view,

Than 2 Archimedes' fphere, the heavens did fhew.
Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning, fill'd up all the parts.
Heav'n's gifts, which do like falling ftars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his foul; and thence
Shone thro' his body, with fweet influence;

2 Archimedes a famous geometrician, who was killed at the taking of Syracufe, in the 542d year of Rome. He made a glais fprere; wherein the motions of the heavenly bodies were wonderfully defcribed.

Letting

Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celestial.
Come, learned 3 Ptolemy, and tryal make,
If thou this hero's altitude can't take:

But that transcends thy fkill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus aftronomical.

Liv'd Tycho 4 now, ftruck with this ray which fhone
More bright i' th' morn', than others beam at noon,
He'd take his astrolabe, and feek out here
What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere.
Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as these,
Where was room left for fuch a foul disease?
The nation's fin hath drawn that veil, which shrouds
Our day-fpring in fo fad benighting clouds,
Heaven would no longer truft its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?

So many fpots, like næves on Venus' foil,'

One jewel set off with so many a foil;

Blisters with pride fwell'd, which through's flefh did fprout

Like rofe-buds, ftuck i' th' lilly-fkin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,

To wail the fault its rifing did commit:
Which, rebel-like, with it's own lord at ftrife,
Thus made an infurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were these gems fent to adorn his skin,
The cab'net of a richer foul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whofe corps might feem a conftellation.

3 Claudius Ptolemeus a celebrated mathematician in the reign of M. Aurelius Antoninus, and was by the Greeks furnamed the Divine. 4 Tycho Brake, a Danish gentleman, famous for his skill in aftronomy and chymiftry. He died at Prague in 1601.

O! had he dy'd of old, how great a strife

Had been, who from his death fhould draw their life?
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæfar, were?

Learn'd, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this
An univerfal metempsychosis.

Muft all these aged fires in one funeral

Expire? all die in one so young, so small?
Who, had he liv'd his life out, his great fame
Had fwol'n 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hafty winter, with one blaft, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, fummer, fpring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak i' th' fprig, i' th' blade the corn;
Thus without young, this 5 Phoenix dies, new-born,
Muft then old three-legg'd grey-beards with their gout,
Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three
ages out?
Time's offals, only fit for th' hospital!
Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal!
Muft drunkards, lechers, fpent with finning, live
With fuch helps as broths, poffets, phyfic give?
None live, but fuch as fhould die? fhall we meet
With none but ghostly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail; forrow will force its way;
And show'rs of tears tempeftuous fighs beft lay,
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lafting ftreams of elegies.
But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravifh'd fpoufe is gone,
Whose skilful fire in vain ftrove to apply
Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy,

5 Naturalifts fay that there never lives more than one phenix, which having reached a period of either five or fix hundred years, builds itself a neft of aromatic gums, in which it is confumed by the fun. The moderns difbelieve its existence; but the antients in many places fpeak of it very ferioufly, particularly Ovid in the fifteenth book of his Metamorphofes,

With greater than platonic love, O wed
His foul, tho' not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
Th' ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Transcribe th' original in new copies; give
Haftings o' th' better part: fo fhall he live
In's nobler half; and the great grandfire be
Of an heroic divine progeny:

An iffue, which t'eternity fhall laft,
Yet but th' irradiations which he caft.
Erect no maufoleums: for his best
Monument is his fpoufe's marble breast.

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