The academie of eloquence containing a compleat English rhetorique, exemplified with common-places and formes digested into an easie and methodical way to speak and write fluently according to the mode of the present times : together with letters both amorous and moral upon emergent occasions / by Tho. Blount, Gent.

LXXIII. The Reply, relating the particulers of that Ladies death.

Sir,

SInce you have been pleas'd to sing so sweet a dirge, and to make so excellent a comment upon our late funerous text, I cannot think the particulers of that sad subject (how confusedly soever I deliver them) will be unacceptable to you; This Lady was 3 moneths continually dying, without any hope of recovery, and this occasion∣ed by an ulcer in her throat, it was my good for∣tune (though others had assai'd it) to gain her first assent to bring a spirituall Phisitian to her. Dr. G. was next at hand, and did act his part ex∣ceedingly well; after 2 or 3 effective visits, the Patient (through the comfort and ease of the spiri∣tuall Cataplasmes and emplaisters, which the Doctor applied) was so rapt and piously enamor'd of him, as she even embrac'd him at every appearance. When shee drew neer the confines of deaths king∣dom, she did usually ejaculate not only most pious but even eloquent or rather diviniloquent expres∣sions, as this (amongst many others) which hea∣ven grant I may never forget. I have (said she) lived long in the vanity of this World, for which God hath placed mee in this bed of sorrow; Were it his

holy pleasure, I should act over one of them again, and the choice left to mee, I would (by the Grace of Jesus) rather chose the torments of this bed, and malady, then have any thing to do with the Worlds vanities, &c Besides nothing did so much trouble her, as that she had lived (as she said) for fear of Worldly enda∣magement) some yeares in an outward profession that contradicted her inward perswasion; The Doctor was no less taken with his Patient, then she with him, for I heard him say hee was never more satisfied with the manner of any persons death; And I confess her exit did more tristitiate mee, then did that of my own Sister, the manner of it, not a little both mortifying and edifying mee; For to see her picture in the Anti-chamber, and then go in and look upon the originall, was subject enough for mortification, the one being so incomparable beau∣tifull, the other so ghastly; In a word, the last breath she drew was Je-and in pronouncing-sus she expir'd. So that we may conclude, as she was a great beauty living, she was a greater dead; For whereas corporall beauty in others dies with the body, hers did not so, but by a secret transition pass'd into the soul. Thus have you heard the brief (but sad) story of this good Ladies end, and that from

Sir,

Your humble servant, T.B.