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.

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.