Miscellanea ... by a person of honour.

Shene Jan. 29. 1674.

TO THE COUNTESS OF ESSEX UPON Her Grief occasioned by the loss of Her only Daughter.

THE Honour I re∣ceived by a Letter from your Ladiship, was too great and too sensible not to be acknowledged; but yet I doubted whether that occa∣sion could bear me out in the confi∣dence of giving your Ladiship any fur∣ther troubles of this kind, without as

good an errand as my last. This I have reckon'd upon a good while by ano∣ther visit my Sister and I had designed to my Lord Capell. How we came to have defer'd it so long, I think we are neither of us like to tell you at this distance, though we make our selves believe it could not be helpt. Your Ladiship at least has had the advantage of being thereby excused sometime from this trouble, which I could no longer forbear upon the sensible wounds that have so often of late been given your friends here by such desperate expressions in several of your Letters concerning your Humour, your Health, and your Life; in all which if they are your Friends, you must allow them to be extremely concerned. Perhaps none can be at heart more partial than I am to whatever touches your Lady∣ship, nor more inclined to defend you upon this very occasion, how unjust and unkind soever you are to your self. But when you go about to throw away your Health, or your Life, so great a remainder of your own Fami∣ly, and so great hopes of that into

which you are enter'd, and all by a desperate melancholly, upon an acci∣dent past remedy, and to which all mortal race is perpetually subject; For God's sake, Madam, give me leave to tell you, that what you do is not at all agreeable either with so good a Christian, or so reasonable, and so great a person as your Ladiship appears to the World in all other lights.

I know no duty in Religion more generally agreed on, nor more justly required by God Almighty than a perfect submission to His Will in all things; nor do I think any disposition of mind can either please Him more, or become us better, than that of be∣ing satisfied with all He gives, and con∣tented with all He takes away. None I am sure can be of more Honour to God, nor of more ease to our selves; for if we consider him as our Maker, we cannot contend with him; if as our Father, we ought not to distrust him; So that we may be confident, whatever He does is intended for our good, and whatever happens that we interpret otherwise, yet we can get

nothing by repining, nor save any thing by resisting.

But if it were fit for us to reason with God Almighty, and your Lady∣ships loss be acknowledged as great as it could have been to any one alive; Yet, I doubt, you would have but ill grace to complain at the rate you have done, or rather as you do; for the first motions of passions how violent soever, may be pardoned; and it is only the course of them which makes them in∣excusable. In this world, Madam, there is nothing perfectly good, and what∣ever is called so, is but either compa∣ratively with other things of its kind, or else with the evil that is mingled in its composition; so he is a good man that is better than men commonly are, or in whom the good qualities are more than the bad; so in the course of life, his condition is esteemed good, which is better than that of most other men, or wherein the good circumstan∣ces are more than the ill; By this mea∣sure, I doubt Madam, your complaints ought to be turned into acknowledg∣ments, and your Friends would have

cause to rejoyce rather than condole with you; For the goods or blessings of life are usually esteemed to be, Birth, Health, Beauty, Friends, Children, Ho∣nour, Riches. Now when your Lady∣ship has fairly considered how God Al∣mighty has dealt with you in what He has given you of all these, you may be left to judge your self how you have dealt with Him in your complaints for what he has taken away. But if you look about you, and consider o∣ther lives as well as your own, and what your lot is in comparison with those that have been drawn in the cir∣cle of your knowledg; If you think how few are born with Honour, how many dye without Name or Children, how little Beauty we see, how few Friends we hear of, how many Diseases, and how much Poverty there is in the world, you will fall down upon your knees, and instead of repining at one affliction, will admire so many blessings as you have received at the hand of God.

To put your Ladiship in mind of what you are, and the advantages you

have in all these points, would look like a design to flatter you: But this I may say, that we will pity you as much as you please, if you will tell us who they are that you think upon all cir∣cumstances you have reason to envy. Now if I had a Master that gave me all I could ask, but thought fit to take one thing from me again, either because I used it ill, or gave my self so much over to it, as to neglect what I owed either to him or the rest of the world; Or perhaps because he would show his power, and put me in mind from whom I held all the rest; would you think I had much reason to complain of hard usage, and never to remember any more what was left me, never to forget what was taken away.

'Tis true, you have lost a Child, and therein all that could be lost in a Child of that age; but you have kept one Child, and are likely to do so long; you have the assurance of another, and the hopes of many more. You have kept a Husband great in imploy∣ment, and in fortune, and (which is more) in the esteem of good men. You

have kept your Beauty, and your Health, unless you have destroyed them your self, or discouraged them to stay with you by using them ill. You have Friends that are as kind to you as you can wish, or as you will give them leave to be by your fears of losing you, and being thereby so much the unhappier, the kinder they are to you; But you have Honour and Esteem from all that know you; or if ever it fails in any degree, 'tis only upon that point of your seeming to be fallen out with God and the whole World, and nei∣ther to care for your self, or any thing else after what you have lost.

You will say perhaps that one thing was all to you, and your fondness of it made you indifferent to every thing else; But this, I doubt, will be so far from justifying you, that it will prove to be your fault as well as your mis∣fortune. God Almighty gave you all the blessings of life, and you set your heart wholly upon one, and despise or undervalue all the rest: Is this His fault or yours? Nay, is it not to be very unthankful to Heaven, as well as

very scornful to the rest of the world? Is it not to say, because you have lost one thing God had given you, you thank Him for nothing he has left, and care not what he takes away? Is it not to say, since that one thing is gone out of the world, there is nothing left in it which you think can deserve your kindness or esteem? A friend makes me a feast, and sets all before me that his care or kindness could provide; but I set my heart upon one dish alone, and if that happen to be thrown down, I scorn all the rest; and though he sends for another of the same, yet I rise from the Table in a rage, and say my friend is my enemy, and has done me the greatest wrong in the world; Have I reason, Madam, or good grace in what I do? Or would it become me better to eat of the rest that is before me, and think no more of what had hap∣pened and could not be remedied?

All the Precepts of Christianity agree to teach and command us to moderate our passions, to temper our affections towards all things below; to be thank∣ful for the possession, and patient under

the loss whenever He that gave it shall see fit to take away. Your extreme fondness was perhaps as displeasing to God before, as now your extreme af∣fliction, and your loss may have been a punishment for your faults in the manner of enjoying what you had; 'Tis at least pious to ascribe all the ill that befalls us to our own demerits ra∣ther than to injustice in God; and be∣comes us better to adore all the issues of His Providence in the effects, than inquire into the causes; For submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and content∣ment in His Will is the greatest duty we can pretend to, and the best reme∣dy we can apply to all our misfor∣tunes.

But, Madam, though Religion were no party in your case, and that for so violent and injurious a grief you had nothing to answer to God, but only to the world and your self; yet I very much doubt how you would be ac∣quitted. We bring into the world with us a poor needy uncertain life, short at the longest, and unquiet at

the best; All the imaginations of the witty and the wise have been perpe∣tually busied to find out the ways how to revive it with pleasures, or relieve it with diversions; how to compose it with ease, and settle it with safety; To some of these ends have been im∣ployed the institutions of Lawgivers, the reasonings of Philosophers, the in∣ventions of Poets, the pains of labour∣ing, and the extravagances of volup∣tuous men. All the world is perpe∣tually at work about nothing else, but only that our poor mortal lives should pass the easier and happier for that lit∣tle time we possess them, or else end the better when we lose them; Upon this occasion Riches came to be coveted, Honours to be esteemed, Friendship and Love to be pursued, and Virtues them∣selves to be admired in the world. Now, Madam, is it not to bid defiance to all mankind, to condemn their uni∣versal opinions and designs, if instead of passing your life as well and easily, you resolve to pass it as ill and as mi∣serably as you can? You grow insen∣sible to the conveniences of Riches,

the delights of Honour and Praise, the charms of kindness, or Friendship, nay to the observance or applause of Vir∣tues themselves; For who can you ex∣pect in these excesses of passion, will allow you to show either temperance or fortitude, to be either prudent or just? And for your Friends, I suppose, you reckon upon losing their kindness, when you have sufficiently convinced them, they can never hope for any of yours, since you have none left for your self, or any thing else. You de∣clare upon all occasions, you are in∣capable of receiving any comfort or pleasure in any thing that is left in this world; and, I assure you Madam, none can ever love you, that can have no hopes ever to please you.

Among the several inquiries and en∣deavours after the happiness of life, the sensual men agree in pursuit of every pleasure they can start, without regarding the pains of the chase, the weariness when it ends, or how little the quarry is worth: The busie and ambitious fall into the more lasting pursuits of Power and Riches; The

speculative men prefer tranquillity of mind, before the different motions of passion and appetite, or the common successions of desire and satiety, of plea∣sure and pain; but this may seem too dull a principle for the happiness of life, which is ever in motion; and though passions are perhaps the stings, without which they say no honey is made; yet I think all sorts of men have ever agreed, they ought to be our Servants, and not our Masters; to give us some agitation for entertainment, or exercise, but never to throw our rea∣son out of its seat. Perhaps I would not always sit still, or would be some∣times on horse-back; but I would ne∣ver ride a Horse that galls my flesh, or shakes my bones, or that runs away with me as he pleases, so as I can nei∣ther stop at a River or Precipice. Bet∣ter no passions at all, than have them too violent; or such alone, as instead of heightening our pleasures, afford us nothing but vexation and pain.

In all such losses as your Ladiships has been, there is something that com∣mon nature cannot be denied, there

is a great deal that good nature may be allowed; but all excessive and out∣rageous grief or lamentation for the dead, was accounted among the anci∣ent Christians, to have something of heathenish; and among the Civil Na∣tions of old, to have something of bar∣barous; and therefore it has been the care of the first to moderate it by their Precepts, and the latter to restrain it by their Laws: The longest time that has been allowed to the forms of Mourning by the custom of any Coun∣trey, and in any Relation, has been but that of a year; in which space the bo∣dy is commonly supposed to be moul∣dered away to earth, and to retain no more figure of what it was; but this has been given only to the loss of Pa∣rents, of Husband, or Wife. On the other side, to Children under age, no∣thing has been allowed; and I sup∣pose with particular reason (the com∣mon Ground of all general customs), perhaps because they dye in innocence, and without having tasted the miseries of life, so as we are sure they are well when they leave us, and escape much

ill would in all appearance have be∣fallen them if they had stay'd longer with us. Besides, a Parent may have twenty Children, and so his mourning may run through all the best of his life, if his losses are frequent of that kind; and our kindness to Children so young, is taken to proceed from com∣mon opinions, or fond imaginations, not Friendship or Esteem; and to be grounded upon entertainment rather than use in the many offices of life; nor would it pass from any person be∣sides your Ladiship, to say you lost a companion and a friend at Nine year old, though you lost one indeed who gave the fairest hopes that could be of being both in time, and every thing else that was esteembable and good; But yet, that it self God only knows, considering the changes of humour and disposition, which are as great as those of feature and shape the first sixteen years of our lives; considering the chances of time, the infection of com∣pany, the snares of the world, and the passions of youth; so that the most excellent and agreeable creature

of that tender age, and that seemed born under the happiest Stars, might by the course of years and accidents, come to be the most miserable her self, and more trouble to her Friends by li∣ving long, than she could have been by dying young.

Yet after all, Madam, I think your loss so great, and some measure of your grief so deserved, that would all your passionate complaints, all the anguish of your heart do any thing to retrieve it; Could tears water the lovely plant, so as to make it grow again after once 'tis cut down. Would sighs furnish new breath, or could it draw life and spi∣rits from the wasting of yours; I am sure your Friends would be so far from accusing your passion, that they would encourage it as much, and share it as deep as they could. But alas, the eter∣nal Laws of the Creation extinguish all such hopes, forbid all such designs; Nature gives us many Children and Friends to take them away, but takes none away to give them us again. And this makes the excesses of grief to have been so universally condemned as a

thing unnatural, because so much in vain; whereas nature they say does nothing in vain: As a thing so unrea∣sonable, because so contrary to our own designs; for we all design to be well, and at ease, and by grief we make our selves ill of imaginary wounds, and raise our selves troubles most pro∣perly out of the dust, while our ra∣vings and complaints are but like ar∣rows shot up into the air, at no mark, and so to no purpose; but only to fall back upon our heads, and destroy our selves instead of recovering, or reveng∣ing our Friends.

Perhaps, Madam, you will say this is your design, or if not your desire; but I hope you are not yet so far gone, or so desperately bent; Your Lady∣ship knows very well your life is not your own, but His that lent it you to manage, and preserve the best you could, and not throw it away, as if it came from some common hand. It belongs in a great measure to your Countrey, and your Family, and there∣fore by all humane Laws, as well as di∣vine, self-murder has ever been agreed

on as the greatest crime, and is punisht here with the utmost shame, which is all that can be inflicted upon the dead. But is the crime much less to kill our selves by a slow poyson, than by a sud∣den wound? Now if we do it, and know we do it by a long and a con∣tinual grief, can we think our selves innocent? What great difference is there if we break our hearts, or con∣sume them; if we pierce them, or bruise them, since all determines in the same death, as all arises from the same de∣spair? But what if it goes not so far? 'tis not indeed so bad as might be, but that does not excuse it from being ve∣ry ill: Though I do not kill my neigh∣bour, is it no hurt to wound him, or to spoyl him of the conveniencies of life? The greatest crime is for a man to kill himself; is it a small one to wound himself by anguish of heart, by grief, or dispair, to ruin his health, to shorten his age, to deprive himself of all the pleasures, or eases, or enjoyments of life?

Next to the mischiefs we do our selves, are those we do our Children,

and our Friends, as those who deserve best of us, or at least deserve no ill; The Child you carry about you, what has that done that you should endea∣vour to deprive it of life, almost as soon as you bestow it? or if at the best you suffer it to live to be born, yet by your ill usage of your self, should so much impair the strength of its bo∣dy and health, and perhaps the very temper of its mind, by giving it such an infusion of melancholly, as may serve to discolour the objects, and dis∣relish the accidents it may meet with in the common train of life? But this is one you are not yet acquainted with; what will you say to another you are? Were it a small injury to my Lord Capell to deprive him of a Mo∣ther, whose prudence and kindness he may justly expect, the cares of his health and education, the forming of his bo∣dy, and the cultivating of his mind; the seeds of Honour and Virtue, and thereby the true Principles of a happy life? How has my Lord of Essex de∣served that you should go about to lose him a Wife He loves with so

much passion, and which is more, with so much reason; so great an honour and support to His Family, so great a hope to His Fortune, and comfort to His Life? Are there so many left of your own great Family, that you should desire in a manner wholly to reduce it, by suffering the greatest and almost last branch of it to wither away be∣fore its time? Or is your Countrey in this age so stored with great persons, that you should envy it those we may justly expect from so noble a race.

Whilest I had any hopes your tears would ease you, or that your grief would consume it self by liberty and time, your Ladiship knows very well I never once accused it, nor ever en∣creased it like many others by the com∣mon formal ways of asswaging it; and this I am sure is the first office of this kind I ever went about to perform o∣therwise than in the most ordinary forms. I was in hope what was so violent, could not be so long; but when I observed it to grow stronger with age, and encrease like a stream the further it run; when I saw it draw

out to such unhappy consequences, and threaten no less than your Child, your Health, and your Life; I could no longer forbear this endeavour, nor end it without begging of your Lady∣ship for God's sake and for your own, for your Childrens and your Friends, for your Countreys and your Families, that you would no longer abandon your self to so disconsolate a passion, but that you would at length awaken your Piety, give way to your Pru∣dence, or at least rowse up the in∣vincible Spirit of the Piercys, that never yet shrunk at any disaster; that you would sometimes remember the great Honours and Fortunes of your Fa∣mily, not always the losses, cherish those veins of good humour that are sometimes so natural to you, and sear up those of ill that would make you so unnatural to your Children, and to your self; But above all, that you would enter upon the cares of your health, and your life, for your Friends sake at least, if not for your own. For my part, I know nothing could be to me so great an honour and sa∣tisfaction,

as if your Ladiship would own me to have contributed towards this Cure; but however, none can per∣haps more justly pretend to your par∣don for the attempt, since there is none, I am sure, that has always had at heart a greater Honour for your Ladiships Family, nor can have for your Person more devotion and esteem than,

Madam,

Your Ladiships most Obedient, and most humble Servant,