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 much lamented death of the Lord STAFFORD.

A Name too great for numbers, fit for those Let loose their eyes, and weepe as 'twere in prose And yet a theame too vast for eyes & here The greatest thing lamented is the Teare. And when we have sate up to hang the Herse, We can't be thought to weep our Lord but verse, So great that we but tole his flame, and chime His gloryes growing, Sextons but in Ryme, Who when he is deliver'd best will beare A fame like moderne faces blotted faire, Whom we conceale in phrase, so vast a Taske We write him to a beauty in a maske. Though he might blow a quil to vers, whil'st men Envie to see the Poet in the Pen: For who can thinke in Prose a man so cleere His thoughts did suffer sight, and soule appeare? That he that searcht his hearty words might find That breath was th' exhalation of his mind, Such faith his tongue did weare you might have vow'd He spoke his brest, & only thought alowd, You might his meaning through his blood have spyde, Too pure deform'd dissembling to hide, As to his Virgin soule, Nature had drawne In so refined flesh a Vayle of Lawne.

So was he borne, cut up, that now we cou'd Learne vertues from the Doctrine of his bloud, Which we might see preach Valtur, and espye His veine, to make an Auditor of the Eye, And runne conclusions, for from hence we try'd Which was a flood of valour, which just Tyde, Learning from his wise heat, that in an Ill A spirit might couragiously sit still That one might dare be quiet, and afford To thinke all mettall lyes not in the sword, And Cutlers make no mindes, Armour no doubt Does well, but none can be inspir'd without, So did her chide the Flame oth' wilder youth That fights for Ladyes hayre or lesse, their truth; His blood discreetly boyl'd did make it cleere It is the minde makes old, and not the yeere: That we may prompt his stone to say—lyes here Stafford the Aged at his foure-teenth yeere?

Io. Howe.