A FUNERAL Elegy In memory of the late Virtuous Master William Peter of Whipton near Excester.  
By W.S.  
Imprinted at London by G. Eld. 1612.   

TO MASTER john Peter of Boohaye in Devon. Esq.  
THe love I bore to your brother, and will do to his memory, hath craved from me this last duty of a friend; I am herein but a second to the privilege of Truth who can warrant more in his behalf, than I undertook to deliver. Exercise in this kind I will little affect, and am less addicted to, but there must be miracle in that labour, which to witness my remembrance to this departed Gentleman, I would not willingly undergo: yet whatsoever is here done, is done to him, and to him only. For whom, and whose sake, I will not forget to remember any friendly respects to you, or to any of those that have loved him for himself; and himself for his deserts.  
W.S.   

A Funeral Elegy.  
SInce Time, and his predestinated end,  
Abridged the circuit of his hopeful days;  
Whiles both his Youth and Virtue did intend,  
The good indeuors, of deserving praise:  
What memorable monument can last,  
Whereon to build his never blemished name?  
But his own worth, wherein his life was graced?  
Sith as it ever he maintained the same.  
Oblivion in the darkest day to come,  
When sin shall tread on merit in the dust;  
Cannot raze out the lamentable tomb  
Of his Short-lived deserts: but still they must  
Even in the hearts and memories of men,  
Claim fit Respect; that they, in every limb,  
Remembering what he was, with comfort than  
May pattern out, One truly good by him.  
For he was truly good; if honest care,  
Of harmless conversation, may commend  
A life free from such stains, as follies are;  
Ill recompensed only in his end.  
Nor can the tongue of him who loved him least,  
(If there can be minority of love,  
To one superlative above the rest,  
Of many men in steady faith) reprove  
His constant temper, in the equal weight  
Of thankfulness, and kindness: Truth doth leave  
Sufficient proof, he was in every right,  
As kind to give, as thankful to receive.  
The curious eye, of a quick brained survey,  
Can scantly find a mote amidst the fun,  
Of his too-shortned days: or make a prey  
Of any faulty error he had done.  
Not that he was above the spleenful sense  
And spite of malice; but for that he had  
Warrant enough in his own innocence,  
Against the sting of some in nature bad.  
Yet who is he so absolutely blest,  
That lives encompassed in a mortal frame?  
Sometime in reputation not oppressed?  
By some in nothing famous but defame?  
Such in the bypath and the Ridg-way lurk  
That leads to ruin; in a smooth pretence  
Of what they do, to be a special work,  
Of singleness, not tending to offence.  
Whose very virtues are not to detract,  
Whiles hope remains of gain (base fee of slaves)  
Despising chief, men in fortunes wracked,  
But death to such gives unremembered graves.  
Now therein lived he happy, if to be  
Free from detraction, happiness it be,  
His younger years, gave comfortable hope  
To hope for comfort, in his riper youth;  
Which (haruest-like) did yield again the crop  
Of Education; bettered, in his truth:  
Those noble twins of heaven infused races,  
Learning and Wit, refined in their kind:  
Did jointly both, in their peculiar graces,  
every the curious temple of his mind.  
Indeed a temple, in whose precious white,  
Sot Reason by Religion over swayed:  
Teaching his other senses, with delight,  
How Piety and Zeal should be obeyed.  
Not fruitlessly in prodigal expense,  
Wasting his best of time: but so content  
With Reasons golden Mean to make defence,  
Against the assault of youth's encouragement:  
As not the tide of this surrounding age,  
(When now his Father's death had freed his will)  
Can make him subject to the drunken rage,  
Of such whose only glory is their ill.  
He from the happy knowledge of the wise,  
Draws virtue to reprove secured fools;  
And shuns the glad sleights of ensnaring vice,  
To spend his spring of days in sacred schools.  
Hear gave he diet to the sick desires,  
That day by day, assault the weaker man;  
And with fit moderation still retires,  
From what doth batter Virtue now and than.  
But that I not intend in full discourse,  
To progress out his life; I could display,  
A Good man in each part exact; and force  
The common voice to warrant what I say.  
For it his fate and heaven had decreed,  
That full of days he might have lived to see  
The grave in peace; the times that should succeed  
Had been best-speaking witnesses with me.  
Whose conversation so untouched, did move  
Respect most in itself, as who would scan  
His Honesty and Worth, by them might prove,  
He was a kind, true, perfect, gentleman.  
Not in the outside of disgraceful folly  
Courting Opinion, with unfit disguise;  
Affecting fashions; nor addicted wholly  
To unbeseeming blushless vanities:  
" But suiting so his habit and desire,  
" As that his Virtue was his best Attire.  
Not in the waist of many idle words  
Cared he to be heard talk; nor in the float  
Of fond conceit (such as this age affords)  
By vain discourse upon himself to dote.  
For his becoming silence, gave such grace  
To his judicious parts; as what he spoke  
Seemed rather answers (which the wise embrace)  
Then busy questions, such as talkers make.  
And though his qualities might well deserve  
Just commendation, yet his furnished mind  
Such harmony of goodness did preserve,  
As Nature never built in better kind.  
Knowing the best, and therefore not presuming  
In knowing, but for that it was the best:  
Ever within himself free choice resuming  
Of true perfection, in a perfect breast.  
So that his Mind and Body made an In,  
The one to lodge the other, both like framed  
For fair conditions; guests that soon win  
Applause, in generality well-famed,  
If trim behaviour, gestures mild, discreet  
Endeavours; modest speech; beseeming mirth;  
True friendship; active grace; persuasion sweet;  
Delightful love, innated from his birth;  
Acquaintance unfamiliar; carriage just;  
Offenceless resolution; wished sobriety;  
Cleane-tempered Moderation; steady Trust;  
Unburdened conscience; unfeigned Piety;  
If these, or all of these, knit fast in one  
Can merit praise: then justly may we say,  
Not any from this frailer stage is gone,  
Whose name is like to live a longer day.  
Though not in eminent courts, or places great,  
For popular concourse; yet in that soil  
Where he enjoyed his birth, life, death, and seat,  
Which now sits mourning his untimely spoil.  
And as much glory is it to be good;  
For private persons, in their private home;  
As those descended from illustrious blood,  
In public view of greatness: whence they come.  
Though I rewarded with some sadder taste,  
Of knowing shame; by feeling it have proved  
My country's thanklessse misconstruction; cast  
Upon my name and credit, both unloved  
By some, whose fortunes sunk into the wane  
Of Plenty and Desert, have strove to win  
justice by wrong; and sifted to imbane  
My reputation, with a witless sin,  
Yet Time, the Father of unblushing Truth,  
May one day lay open malice which hath crossed it:  
And right the hopes of my endangered youth,  
Purchasing credit in the place I lost it.  
Even in which place, the subject of the verse  
(Unhappy matter of a mourning style)  
Which now that subject's merits doth rehearse,  
Had education, and new being: while  
By fair demeanour, he had won repute  
Amongst the All of all that lived there:  
For that his actions did so wholly suit  
With worthiness, still memorable here.  
The many hours till the day of doom,  
Will not consume his life and hapless end:  
For should he lie obscured without a tomb,  
Time would to time his honesty commend.  
Whiles Parents to their children will make known,  
And they to their posterity impart,  
How such a man was sadly overthrown,  
By a hand guided by a cruel heart.  
" Whereof as many as shall hear that sadness,  
" Will blame the or es hard fate, the others madness.  
Whiles such as do recount that tale of woe,  
Told by remembrance of the wisest heads,  
Will in the end conclude the matter so,  
As they will all go weeping to their beds.  
For when the world lies winterd in the storms  
Of fearful consummation; and lays down,  
Th' unsteddie change of his fantastic forms,  
Expecting ever to be overthrown:  
When the proud height of much affected sin  
Shall ripen to a head, and in that pride,  
End in the miseries it did begin,  
And fall amidst the glory of his tide:  
Then in a book where every work is writ,  
Shall this man's actions be revealed; to show  
The gainful fruit of well-imployed wit,  
Which paid to heaven the debt that it did owe:  
Hear shall be reckoned up the constant faith,  
Never untrue, where once he love professed;  
Which is a miracle in men (one faith)  
Long sought, though rarely found: and he is best  
" who can make friendship, in those times of change,  
" Admired more, for being firm then strange.  
When those weak houses of our brittle flesh,  
Shall ruined be by death; our grace, and strength,  
Youth, memory and shape, that made us fresh,  
Cast down, and utterly decayed at length:  
When all shall turn to dust from whence we came,  
And we low leveled in a narrow grave,  
What can we leave behind us but a name?  
Which by a life well led may honour have?  
Such honour, o thou youth untimely lost,  
Thou didst deserve and haste; for though thy soul  
Hath took her flight to a diviner coast,  
Yet here on earth thy fame lives ever whole.  
In every heart sealed up, in every tongue  
Fit matter to discourse; no day prevented,  
That pities not thy sad and sudden wrong,  
Of all alike beloved and lamented.  
And I here to thy memorable worth,  
In this last act of friendship, sacrifice  
My love to Thee; which I could not set forth  
In any other habit of disguise.  
Although I could not learn (whiles yet thou wert)  
To speak the language of a servile breath:  
My truth stole from my tongue into my heart,  
Which shall not thence be sundered, but in death.  
And I confess my love was too remisle,  
That had not made thee know, how much I prized thee:  
But that mine error was, as yet it is,  
To think love best in silence: for I sized thee  
By what I would have been; not only ready  
In telling I was thine; but being so,  
By some effect to show it: He is steady  
Who seems less than he is, in open show.  
Since than I still reserved to try the worst,  
Which hardest sat and time thus can lay on me.  
Tinlarge my thoughts, was hindered at first,  
While thou hadst life: I took this task upon me,  
To register with mine unhappy Pen,  
Such duties as it owes to thy desert;  
And set thee as a Precedent to Men,  
And Limne thee to the world but as thou wert.  
Not hired, as heaven can witness in my soul,  
By vain conceit, to please such one's as know it;  
Nor servile to be liked; free from control;  
Which pain to many men I do not owe it.  
But here I trust, I have discharged now  
(Fair lovely branch too soon cut off) to Thee,  
My constant and irrefragable vow,  
As had it chanced thou mightst have done to me.  
But that no merit strong enough of mine,  
Had yielded store to thy well-abled quill:  
Whereby t'enrole my name, as this of thine,  
How s'ere inritched by thy plenteous skill.  
Hear than I offer up to Memory,  
The value of my talent (precious man)  
Whereby if thou live to Posterity,  
Though't be not as I would, 'tis as I can:  
" In minds from whence endeavour doth proceed,  
" A ready will is taken for the deed.  
Yet ere I take my longest last farewell,  
From thee, fair mark of sorrow; let me frame  
Some ampler work of thank, wherein to tell  
What more thou didst deserve, then in thy name,  
And free thee from the scandal of such senses,  
As in the rancour of unhappy spleen,  
Measure thy course of life (with false pretences)  
Comparing by thy death, what thou hast been.  
" So in his mischiefs is the world accursed,  
" It picks out matter to inform the worst.  
The wilful blindness that hoodwinkes the eyes  
Of men enwrapped in an earthy veil,  
Makes them most ignorantly exercise,  
And yield to humour, when it doth assail;  
Whereby the candle, and the body's light  
Darkens the inward eyesight of the mind:  
Presuming still it sees, even in the night  
Of that same ignorance which makes them blind.  
Hence construe they with corrupt Commentaries,  
Proceeding from a nature as corrupt,  
The text of malice; which so often varies,  
As 'tis by seeming reason underpropt.  
O! whether tends the lamentable spite  
Of this world's teen-full apprehension?  
Which understands all things amiss; whose light  
Shines not amidst the dark of their dissension?  
True 'tis, this man (whiles yet he was a man)  
Soothed not the current of besotted fashion:  
Nor could digest as some lose Mimics can,  
An empty sound of overweening passion:  
So much to be made servant to the base,  
And sensual aptness of dis-vnioned vices:  
To purchase commendation by disgrace,  
Whereto the world and heat of sin entices.  
But in a safer contemplation,  
Secure in what he knew, he ever chose  
The ready way to commendation,  
By shunning all invitemens' strange, of those  
Whose illness is the necessary praise,  
Must wait upon their actions: only rare  
In being rare in shame, which strives to raise  
Their name by doing what they do not care.  
As if the free commission of their ill,  
Were even as boundless as their prompt desires:  
Only like Lords, like subjects to their will,  
Which their fond dotage evermore admires.  
He was not so; but in a serious awe,  
Ruling the little ordered commonwealth,  
Of his own self with honour to the law,  
That gave peace to his bread, bread to his health.  
Which ever he maintained in sweet content,  
And pleasurable rest; wherein he joyed  
A Monarchy of comforts government,  
Never until his last to be destroyed.  
For in the Vineyard of heaven-favoured learning,  
(Where he was double honoured in degree)  
His observation and discreet discerning,  
Had taught him in both fortunes to be free.  
Whence now retired home; to a home indeed;  
The home of his condition and estate;  
He well provided 'gainst the hand of need,  
Whence youngmen some time grow unfortunate.  
His disposition, by the bonds of unity,  
So fastened to his reason; that it strove,  
With understandings grave immunity,  
To purchase from all hearts a steady love.  
Wherein not any one thing comprehends,  
Proportionable note of what he was,  
Then that he was so constant to his friends,  
As he would no occasion overpass,  
Which might make known his unaffected care,  
In all respects of trial, to unlock  
His bosom and his store which did declare,  
That Christ was his, and he was friendships Rock:  
A Rock of Friendship figured in his name,  
Foreshowing what he was, and what should be,  
Most true presage, and he discharged the same,  
In every act of perfect amity:  
Though in the complemental phrase of words,  
He never was addicted to the vain  
Of boast, such as the common breath affords,  
He was in use most fast in tongue most plain,  
Nor amongst all those virtues, that for ever,  
Adorned his reputation, will be found  
One greater than his Faith: which did persever,  
Where once it was protested always sound.  
Hence sprung the deadly fuel that reviv'd  
The rage which wrought his end; for had he been  
Slacker in love, he had been longer lived,  
And not oppressed by wraths unhappy sin.  
By wraths unhappy sin, which unadvised  
Gave death for free good will and wounds for love  
Pity it was that blood had not been prized  
At higher rate, and reason set above  
Most unjust choler, which untimely Drew  
Destruction on itself: and most uniunst,  
Robbed virtue of a follower so true,  
As time can boast of both for love and trust,  
" So henceforth all (great glory to his blood)  
" Shall be but Seconds to him being good.  
" The wicked end their honour with their sin,  
" In death, which only then the good begin.  
Lo here a lesson by experience taught,  
For men whose pure simplicity hath drawn,  
Their trust to be betrayed by being caught  
Within the snares of making truth a pawn.  
Whiles it not doubting whereinto it enters,  
Without true proof and knowledge of a friend,  
Sincere in singleness of heart, adventers  
To give fit cause, ere love begin, to end.  
" His unfeigned friendship where it lest was sought,  
" Him to a fatal timeless ruin brought.  
Whereby the life that purity adorned  
With real merit, by this sudden end,  
Is in the mouth of some in manners scorned,  
Made questionable, for they do intend,  
(According to the tenor of the Saw  
Mistook, if not observed, writ long ago)  
When men were only led by Reason's law,  
That such as is the end, the life proves so.  
Thus He, who to the universal lapse  
Gave sweet redemption, offering up his blood,  
To conquer death by death; and lose the traps  
Of Hell, even in the triumph that it stood:  
He thus, for that his guiltless life was spilled  
By death, which was made subject to the curse;  
Might in like manner be reproved of guilt,  
In his pure life, for that his end was worse.  
But o far be it, our unholy lips  
Should so profane the Deity above:  
As thereby to ordain revenging whips,  
Against the day of judgement and of Love:  
The hand that lends us honour in our days,  
May shorten when it please; and justly take  
Our honour from us, many sundry ways,  
As best becomes that wisdom did us make.  
The second brother who was next begot,  
Of all that ever were begotten yet;  
Was by a hand in vengeance rude and hot,  
Sent innocent to be in heaven set.  
Whose fame the Angels in melodious quires,  
Still witness to the world; then why should he,  
Well-profited in excellent desires,  
Be more rebuked, who had like destiny?  
Those Saints before the everlasting throne,  
Who sit with crowns of glory on their heads,  
Washed white in blood, from earth hence have not gone,  
All to their joys, in quiet on their beds;  
But tasted of the sower-bitter scourge,  
Of torture and affliction, ere they gained,  
Those blessings which their sufferance did urge.  
Whereby the grace forepromised they attained.  
Let then the false suggestions of the froward  
Building large Castles in the empty air,  
By suppositions fond and thoughts untoward,  
(Issues of discontent and sick despair)  
Rebound gross arguments, upon their heart;  
That may disprove their malice: and confound  
Uncivil lose opinions, which insert  
Their souls into the roll, that doth unsound  
Betraying policies: and show their brains  
Unto their shame ridiculous: whose scope  
Is envy, whose endeavours fruitless pains,  
In nothing surely prosperous, but hope.  
And that same hope, so lame, so unprevailing,  
It buries self conceit in weak opinion;  
Which being crossed, gives matter of bewailing  
Their vain designs, on whom want hath dominion.  
Such, and of such condition may devise,  
Which way to wound with defamations spirit,  
(Close lurking whispers hidden forgeries)  
His taintless goodness, his desertful merit.  
But whiles the minds of men can judge sincerely,  
Upon assured knowledge: his repute  
And estimation, shall be rumour clearly,  
In equal worth, Time shall to time renewed.  
The Grave, that in his ever empty womb,  
For ever closes up the unrespected,  
Who when they die, die all; shall not entomb  
His pleading best perfections as neglected.  
They to his notice in succeeding years▪  
Shall speak for him, when He shall lie below;  
When nothing but his memory appears,  
Of what he was; then shall his virtues grow.  
His being but a private man in rank,  
(And yet not ranked beneath a Gentleman)  
Shall not abridge the commendable thank,  
Which wise posterity shall give him than:  
For Nature, and his therein happy Fate,  
Ordained that by his quality of mind,  
Tennoble that best part, although his state  
Were to a lower blessedness confined,  
Blood, pomp, state, honour, glory and command,  
Without fit ornaments of disposition,  
Are in themselves but heathenish and profane,  
And much more peaceful is a mean condition,  
Which underneath the roof of sa●e content,  
Feeds on the bread of rest: and takes delight,  
To look upon the labours it hath spent,  
For it's own sustenance, both day and night.  
Whiles others plotting which way to be great,  
How to augment their portion and ambition,  
Do toil their giddy brains, and ever sweat,  
For popular applause, and power's commission.  
But one in honour like a seeled Dove,  
Whose inward eyes are dimmed with dignity;  
Does think most safety doth remain above.  
And seeks to be secure, by mounting high:  
" Whence when he falz, who did ere while aspire,  
" Fal's deeper down, for that he climbed higher.  
Now men who in a lower region live,  
Exempt from danger of authority,  
Have fittest times in Reasons rules to thrive,  
Not vexed with envy of priority.  
" And those are much more noble in the mind,  
" Then many that have nobleness by kind.  
Birth, blood, and ancestors, are none of ours,  
Nor can we make a proper challenge to them:  
But virtues and perfections in our powers,  
Proceed most truly from us, if we do them.  
Respective titles or a gracious style,  
With all what men in eminence possess,  
Are, without ornaments to praise them, vile:  
The beauty of the mind, is nobleness.  
And such as have that beauty, well deserve  
Eternal characters, that after death  
Remembrance of their worth, we may preserve,  
So that their glory die not with their breath.  
Else what avails it in a goodly strife,  
Upon this face of earth here to contend,  
The good t'exceed the wicked in their life,  
Should both be like obscured in their end?  
Until which end, there is none rightly can  
Be termed happy, since the happiness  
Depends upon the goodness of the man,  
Which afterwards his praises will express.  
Look hither then, you that enjoy the youth  
Of your best days; and see how unexpected  
Death can betray your jollity to ruth?  
When death you think is least to be respected?  
The person of this model here set out,  
Had all that youth & happy days could give him:  
Yet could not all encompass him about,  
Against th' assault of death, who to relieve him  
Struck home but to the frail and mortal parts,  
Of his humanity: but could not touch  
His flourishing and fair long-lived deserts,  
Above fate's reach, his singleness was such.  
So that he dies but once, but doubly lives,  
Once in his proper self, then in his name:  
Predestinated Time, who all deprives,  
Can never yet deprive him of the same.  
And had the Genius which attended on him,  
Been possibilited to keep him safe,  
Against the rigour that hath over-gone him,  
He had been to the public use a staff:  
Leading by his example in the path,  
Which guides to doing well, wherein so few  
The proneness of this age, to error hath  
Informed rightly in the courses true.  
As then the loss of one, whose inclination  
strove to win love in general, is sad,  
So specially his friends, in soft compassion  
Do feel the greatest loss they could have had.  
Amongst them all she who those nine of years  
Lived fellow to his counsels, and his bed;  
Hath the most share in loss: for I in hers,  
Feel what distemperature this chance hath bred.  
The chaste embracements of conjugal love,  
Who in a mutual harmony consent;  
Are so impatient of a strange remove,  
As meager Death itself seems to lament.  
And weep upon those cheeks, which nature framed  
To be delightful orbs, in whom the force  
Of lively sweetness plays, so that ashamed  
Death often pities his unkind divorce.  
Such was the separation here constrained,  
(Well-worthy to be termed a rudeness rather)  
For in his life his love was so unfeigned,  
As he was both an husband and a father.  
The one in firm affection, and the other  
In careful providence, which ever strove  
With joint assistance to grace one another,  
With every helpful furtherance of love.  
But since the sum of all that can be said  
Can be but said that He was good: which wholly  
Includes all excellence can be displayed,  
In praise of Virtue and reproach of Folly:  
His due deserts, this sentence on him gives,  
He died in life, yet in his death he lives:  
Now runs the method of this doleful song,  
In accents brief to thee, O thou deceased!  
To whom those pains do only all belong,  
As witnesles I did not love thee least.  
For could my worthless brain find out but how,  
To raise thee from the Sepulchre of dust;  
Undoubtedly thou shouldst have partage now,  
Of life with me; and heaven be counted just:  
If to a supplicating soul, it would  
Give life a new, by giving life again  
Where life is missed: whereby discomfort should  
Right his old griefs, and former joys retain.  
Which now with thee are leapt into thy tomb,  
And buried in that hollow vault of woe:  
Expecting yet a more severer doom,  
Then times strict slinty hand will let them know.  
And now if I levelled mine account,  
And reckoned up in a true measured score,  
Those perfect graces which were ever wont  
To wait on thee alive, I ask no more.  
But shall hereafter in a poor content,  
Immure those imputations I sustain,  
Learning my days of youth so to prevent,  
As not to be cast down by them again:  
Only those hopes, which fate denies to grant,  
In full possession to a captive heart:  
Who if it were in plenty, still would want,  
Before it may enjoy his better part:  
From which detained, and banished in th' exile  
Of dim misfortune, has none other prop,  
Whereon to lean and rest itself the while,  
But the weak comfort of the hapless Hope.  
And Hope must in despite of fearful change,  
Play in the strongest closet of my breast:  
Although perhaps I ignorantly range,  
And court opinion in my deep'st unrest.  
But whether doth the stream of my mischance  
Drive me beyond myself: fast friend, soon lost,  
Long may thy worthiness thy name advance,  
Amongst the virtuous, and deserving most.  
Who herein hast for ever happy proved,  
In life thou livedst, in death thou dyed'st beloved.  
FINIS.