AN ANATOMY of the World. WHEREIN, BY OCCASION OF the untimely death of Mistress ELIZABETH DRURY the frailty and the decay of this whole world is represented. LONDON, Printed for Samuel Macham. and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard, at the sign of the Bulhead. AN. DOM. 1611. TO THE PRAISE of the Dead, and the ANATOMY. Well died the world, that we might live to see This world of wit, in his anatomy: No evil wants his good: so wilder heirs Bedew their father's Toombs with forced tears, whose state requites their los: lest thus we gain Well may we walk in blacks, but not complain. Yet, how can I consent the world is dead While this Muse lives? which in his spirits stead Seems to inform a world: and bids it be, In spite of loss, or frail mortality? And thou the subject of this well-born thought, Thrice noble maid; couldst not have found nor sought A fitter time to yield to thy sad Fate, Then whiles this spirit lives; that can relate Thy worth so well to our last nephew's eyen, That they shall wonder both at his, and thine: Admired match! where strives in mutual grace The cunning Pencil, and the comely face: A task, which thy fair goodness made too much For the bold pride of vulgar pens to touch; Enough is us to praise them that praise thee, And say that but enough those praises be, Which hadst thou lived, had hid their fearful head From th'angry checkings of thy modest red: Death bars reward & shame: when envy's gone, And gain; 'tis safe to give the dead their own. As then the wise Egyptians want to lay More on their Tombs, than houses: these of clay, But those of brass, or marble were; so we Give more unto thy Ghost, then unto thee. Yet what we give to thee, thou gav'st to us, And mayst but thank thyself, for being thus: Yet what thou gav'st, and wert, O happy maid, Thy grace professed all due, where 'tis repaid. So these high songs that to thee suited been, Serve but to sound thy maker's praise, in thine, Which thy dear soul as sweetly sings to him Amid the Choir of Saints and Seraphim, As any Angel's tongue can sing of thee; The subjects differ, though the skill agree: For as by infant-yeares men judge of age, Thy early love, thy virtues, did presage What an hie part thou bearest in those best songs Whereto no burden, nor no end belongs. Sing on, thou Virgin soul, whose lossefull gain Thy lovesick Parents have bewailed in vain; Never may thy name be in our songs forgot Till we shall sing thy ditty, and thy note. AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD. When that rich soul which to her Heaven is gone, Whom all they celebrate, who know they have one, (For who is sure he hath a soul, unless It see, and judge, and follow worthiness, And by Deeds praise it? He who doth not this, May lodge an inmate soul, but 'tis not his.) When that Queen ended here her progress time, And, as t'her standing house, to heaven did climb, Where, loath to make the Saints attend her long, she's now a part both of the Choir, and Song, This world, in that great earthquake languished; For in a common Bath of tears it bled, Which drew the strongest vital spirits out: But succoured then with a perplexed doubt, Whether the world did loose or gain in this, (Because since now no other way there is But goodness, to see her, whom all would see, All must endeavour to be good as she,) This great consumption to a fever turned, And so the world had fits; it joyed, it mourned. And, as men think, that Agues physic are, And th' Ague being spent, give over care, So thou, sick world, mistak'st thyself to be Well, when alas, thou'rt in a lethargy. Her death did wound, and tame thee than, and than Thou mightst have better spared the Sun, or Man; That wound was deep, but 'tis more misery, That thou hast lost thy sense and memory. 'Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan, But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown. Thou hast forgot thy name, thou hadst; thou wast Nothing but she, and her thou hast o'erpast. For as a child kept from the Font, until A Prince, expected long, come to fulfil The Ceremonies, thou vnnam'd hadst laid, Had not her coming, thee her Palace made: Her name defined thee, gave thee form and frame, And thou forgettest to celebrate thy name. Some months she hath been dead (but being dead, Measures of times are all determined) But long shee'ath been away, long, long, yet none Offers to tell us who it is that's gone. But as in states doubtful of future heirs, When sickness without remedy, empayres The present Prince, they're loath it should be said, The Prince doth languish, or the Prince is dead: So mankind feeling now a general thaw, A strong example gone equal to law, The Cement which did faithfully compact And glue all virtues, now resolved, and slacked, Thought it some blasphemy to say sh'was dead; Or that our weakness was discovered In that confession; therefore spoke no more Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore. But though it be too late to succour thee, Sick world, yea dead, yea putrefied, since she Thy'ntrinsique Balm, and thy preservative, Can never be renewed, thou never live, I (since no man can make thee live) will try, What we may gain by thy Anatomy. Her death hath taught us dearly, that thou art Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part. Let no man say, the world itself being dead, 'Tis labour lost to have discovered The world's infirmities, since there is none Alive to study this dissectione; For there's a kind of world remaining still, Though she which did inanimate and fill The world, be gone, yet in this last long night, Her Ghost doth walk; that is, a glimmering light, A faint weak love of virtue and of good reflects from her, on them which understood Her worth; And though she have shut in all day, The twilight of her memory doth stay; Which, from the carcase of the old world, free, Creates a new world; and new creatures be Produced: The matter and the stuff of this, Her virtue, and the form our practice is. And though to be thus Elemented, arm These Creatures, from hom-borne intrinsic harm, (For all assumed unto this dignity, So many weedlesse Paradises be, Which of themselves produce no venomous sin, Except some foreign Serpent bring it in) Yet, because outward storms the strongest break, And strength itself by confidence grows weak, This new world may be safer, being told The dangers and diseases of the old: For with due temper men do then forego, Or covet things, when they their true worth know. There is no health; Physicians say that we At best, enjoy, but a neutrality. And can there be worse sickness, then to know That we are never well, nor can be so? We are borne ruinous: poor mother's cry, That children come not right, nor orderly, Except they headlong come, and fall upon An ominous precipitation. How witty's ruin? how importunate Upon mankind? It laboured to frustrate Even God's purpose; and made woman, sent For man's relief, cause of his languishment. They were to good ends, and they are so still, But accessary, and principal in ill. For that first marriage was our funeral: One woman at one blow, than killed us all, And singly, one by one, they kill us now. We do delightfully ourselves allow To that consumption; and profusely blind, We kill ourselves, to propagate our kind. And yet we do not that; we are not men: There is not now that mankind, which was then When as the Sun, and man, did seem to strive, (joint tenants of the world) who should survive. When Stag, and Raven, and the long-lived tree, Compared with man dyde in minority. When, if a slow pac'd star had stolen away From the observers marking, he might stay Two or three hundred years to see't again, And then make up his observation plain; When, as the age was long, the size was great: Man's growth confessed, and recompensed the meat: So spacious and large, that every soul Did a fair Kingdom, and large Realm control: And when the very stature thus erect, Did that soul a good way towards Heaven direct. Where is this mankind now? who lives to age, Fit to be made Methusalem his page? Alas, we scarce live long enough to try; Whether a new made clock run right, or lie. Old Grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow, And for our children we reserve to morrow. So short is life, that every peasant strives, In a torn house, or field, to have three lives. And as in lasting, so in length is man Contracted to an inch, who was a span. For had a man at first, in Forests strayed, Or shipwrecked in the Sea, one would have laid A wager that an Elephant, or Whale That met him, would not hastily assail A thing so equal to him: now alas, The Fairies, and the Pigmies well may pass As credible; mankind decays so soon, We're scarce our Father's shadows cast at noon. Only death adds t'our length: nor are we grown In stature to be men, till we are none. But this were light, did our less volume hold All the old Text; or had we changed to gold Their silver; or disposed into less glass, Spirits of virtue, which then scattered was. But 'tis not so: weare not retired, but dampt; And as our bodies, so our minds are cramped: 'Tis shrinking, not close-weaning, that hath thus, In mind and body both bedwarfed us. We seem ambitious, God's whole work t'undo; Of nothing he made us, and we strive too, To bring ourselves to nothing back; and we Do what we can, to do't so soon as he. With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse Engine far. Thus man, this world's Vice-Emperor, in whom All faculties, all graces are at home; And if in other Creatures they appear, They're but man's ministers, and Legates there, To work on their rebellions, and reduce Them to Civility, and to man's use. This man, whom God did woo, and loath t'attend Till man came up, did down to man descend, This man, so great, that all that is, is his, Oh what a trifle, and poor thing he is! If man were any thing, he's nothing now: Help, or at least some time to waste, allow T'his other wants, yet when he did depart With her whom we lament he lost his heart. She, of whom th' Ancients seemed to prophesy, When they called virtues by the name of she, She in whom virtue was so much refin'd, That for Allay unto so pure a mind She took the weaker Sex, sh[e] that could drive The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve, Out of her thoughts, and deeds; and purify All, by a true religious Alchemy; She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou knowest this, Thou knowest how poor a trifling thing man is. And learnest thus much by our anatomy, The heart being perished, no part can be free. And that except thou seed (not banquet) on The supernatural food, Religion, Thy better Growth grows withered, and scant; Be more than man, or thou'rt less then an Ant. Then, as mankind, so is the world's whole frame Quite out of joint, almost created lame: For, before God had made up all the rest, Corruption entered, and depraved the best: It seized Angels, and then first of all The world did in her Cradle take a fall, And turned her brains, and took a general maim Wronging each joint of th'universal frame. The noblest part, man, felt it first; and than Both beasts and plants, cursed in the curse of man. So did the world from the first hour decay, That evening was beginning of the day, And now the Springs and summers which we see, Like sons of women after fifty be. And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, The Element of fire is quite put out; The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him, where to look for it. And freely men confess, that this world's spent, When in the Planets, and the Firmament They seek so many new; they see that this Is crumbled out again to his Atomis. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all Relation: Prince, Subject, Father, Son, are things forgot, For every man alone thinks he hath got To be a Phoenix, and that then can be None of that kind, of which he is, but he. This is the world's condition now, and now She that should all parts to reunion bow, She that had all Magnetic force alone, To draw, and fasten sundered parts in one; She whom wise nature had invented then When she observed that every sort of men Did in their voyage in this world's Sea stray, And needed a new compass for their way; She that was best, and first original Of all fair copies; and the general Steward to Fate; she whose rich eyes, and breast, Gild the West Indies, and perfumed the East; Whose having breathed in this world, did bestow Spice on those Isles, and bade them still smell so, And that rich Indie which doth gold inter, Is but a single money, coined from her: She to whom this world must itself refer, As Suburbs, or the Microcosm of her, She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this, Thou know'st how lame a cripple this world is. And learnest thus much by our Anatomy, That this world's general sickness doth not lie In any humour, or one certain part; But, as thou sawest it rotten at the heart, Thou seest a Hectic fever hath got hold Of the whole substance, not to be controlled. And that thou hast but one way, not t'admit The world's infection, to be none of it. For the world's subtilst immaterial parts Feel this consuming wound, and ages darts. For the world's beauty is decayed, or gone, Beauty, that's colour, and proportion. We think the heavens enjoy their Spherical Their round proportion embracing all. But yet their various and perplexed course, Observed in divers ages doth enforce Men to find out so many Eccentrique parts, Such divers downright lines, such overthwarts, As disproportion that pure form. It tears The Firmament in eight and forty shears, And in those constellations than arise New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes: As though heaven suffered earthquakes, peace or war, When new Towers rise, and old demolished are. They have empayld within a Zodiac The freeborn Sun, and keep twelve signs awake To watch his steps; the Goat and Crabbe control, And fright him back, who else to either Pole, (Did not these Tropiques fetter him) might run: For his course is not round; nor can the Sun Perfect a Circle, or maintain his way One inch direct; but where he rose to day He comes no more, but with a cozening line, Steals by that point, and so is Serpentine: And seeming weary with his recling thus, He means to sleep, being now fallen nearer us. So, of the stars which boast that they do run In Circle still, none ends where he begun. All their proportion's lame, it sinks, it swells. For of Meridian's, and Parallels, Man hath weaved out a net, and this net thrown Upon the Heavens, and now they are his own. Loath to go up the hill, or labour thus To go to heaven, we make heaven come to us. We spur, we rain the stars, and in their race They're diversly content t'obey our pace. But keeps the earth her round proportion still? Doth not a Tenarif, or higher Hill Rise so high like a Rock, that one might think The floating Moon would shipwreck there, and sink? Seas are so deep, that Whales being struck to day, Perchance to morrow, scarce at middle way Of their wished journeys end, the bottom, die. And men, to sound depths, so much line untie, As one might justly think, that there would rise At end thereof, one of th'Antipodies: If under all, a Vault infernal be, (Which sure is spacious, except that we Invent another torment, that there must Millions into a straight hot room be thrust) Then solidness, and roundness have no place. Are these but warts, and pockholes in the face Of th'earth? Think so. But yet confess, in this The world's proportion disfigured is, That those two legs whereon it doth rely, Reward and punishment are bend awry. And, Oh, it can no more be questioned, That beauties best, proportion, is dead, Since even grief itself, which now alone Is left us, is without proportion. She by whose lines proportion should be Examined, measure of all Symmetree, Whom had that Ancient seen, who thought souls made Of Harmony, he would at next have said That Harmony was she, and thence infer, That souls were but Resultances from her, And did from her into our bodies go, As to our eyes, the forms from objects flow: She, who if those great Doctors truly said That th'ark to man's proportions was made, Had been a type for that, as that might be A type of her in this, that contrary Both Elements, and Passions lived at peace In her, who caused all Civil war to cease. She, after whom, what form soe'er we see, Is discord, and rude incongruitee, She, she is dead, she's dead; when thou know'st this, Thou know'st how ugly a monster this world is: And learnest thus much by our Anatomy, That here is nothing to enamor thee: And that, not only faults in inward parts, Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts, Poisoning the fountains, whence our actions spring, Endanger us: but that if every thing Be not done fitly'nd in proportion, To satisfy wise, and good lookers on, (Since most men be such as most think they be) They're loathsome too, by this deformity. For good, and well, must in our actions meet: Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet. But beauties other second Element, Colour, and lustre now, is as near spent. And had the world his just proportion, Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone. As a compassionate Turcoyse which doth tell By looking pale, the wearer is not well, As gold falls sick being stung with Mercury, All the world's parts of such complexion be. When nature was most busy, the first week, Swaddling the new-born earth, God seemed to like, That she should sport herself sometimes, and play, To mingle, and vary colours every day. And then, as though she could not make i now, Himself his various Rainbow did allow. Sight is the noblest sense of any one, Yet sight hath only colour to feed on, And colour is decayed: summer's rob grows dusky, and like an oft died garment shows. Our blushing red, which used in cheeks to spread, Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red. Perchance the world might have recovered, If she whom we lament had not been dead: But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue (Beauties ingredients) voluntary grew, As in an unvexed Paradise; from whom Did all things verdure, and their lustre come, Whose composition was miraculous, Being all colour, all Diaphanous, (For Air, and Fire but thick gross bodies were, And liveliest stones but drowsy, and pale to her,) She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this, Thou know'st how wan a Ghost this our world is: And learnest thus much by our anatomy, That it should more affright, than pleasure thee. And that, since all fair colour than did sink, 'tis now but wicked vanity to think, To colour vicious deeds with good pretence, Or with bought colours to illude men's sense. Nor in aught more this world's decay appears, Then that her influence the heaven forbears, Or that the Elements do not feel this, The father, or the mother barren is. The clouds conceive not rain, or do not power In the due birth-time, down the balmy shower. Th'air doth not motherly sit on the earth, To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth. Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs And false-conceptions fill the general wombs. Th'air shows such Meteors, as none can see, Not only what they mean, but what they be. Earth such new worms, as would have troubled me Th'Egyptian Mages to have made more such. What Artist now dares boast that he can bring Heaven hither, or constellate any thing, So as the influence of those stars may be Imprisoned in an Herb, or Charm, or Tree, And do by touch, all which those stars could do? The art is lost, and correspondence too. For heaven gives little, and the earth takes less, And man lest knows their trade, and purposes. If this commerce twixt heaven and earth were not Embarred, and all this traffic quite forgot, She, for whose loss we have lamented thus, Would work more fully ' and powerfully on us. Since herbs, and roots by dying, lose not all, But they, yea Ashes too, are medicinal, Death could not quench her virtue so, but that It would be (if not followed) wondered at: And all the world would be one dying Swan, To sing her funeral praise, and vanish than. But as some Serpent's poison hurteth not, Except it be from the live Serpent shot, So doth her virtue need her here, to fit That unto us; she working more than it. But she, in whom, to such maturity, Virtue was grown, past growth, that it must die, She from whose influence all Impressions came, But, by Receivers impotencies, lame, Who, though she could not transubstantiate All states to gold, yet guilded every state, So that some Princes have some temperance; Some Counsellors some purpose to advance The common profit; and some people have Some stay, no more than Kings should give, to crave; Some women have some taciturnity; Some Nunneries, some grains of chastity. She that did thus much, and much more could do, But that our age was Iron, and rusty too, She, she is dead; she's dead: when thou know'st this, Thou knowest how dry a Cinder this world is. And learnest thus much by our Anatomy, That 'tis in vain to dew, or mollify It with thy Tears, or Sweat, or Blood: no thing Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing, But those rich joys, which did possess her heart, Of which she's now partaker, and a part. But as in cutting up a man that's dead, The body will not last out to have read On every part, and therefore men direct Their speech to parts, that are of most effect; So the world's carcase would not last, if I Were punctual in this Anatomy. Nor smells it well to hearers, if one tell Them their disease, who fain would think they're well. Here therefore be the end: And, blessed maid, Of whom is meant what ever hath been said, Or shall be spoken well by any tongue, Whose name refines course lines, & makes prose song, Accept this tribute, and his first years rend, Who till his dark short tapers end be spent, As oft as thy feast sees this widowed earth, Will yearly celebrate thy second birth, That is, thy death. For though the soul of man Be got when man is made, 'tis borne but than When man doth die. Our body's as the womb, And as a midwife death directs it home. And you her creatures, whom she works upon And have your last, and best concoction From her example, and her virtue, if you In reverence to her, do think it due, That no one should her praises thus rehearse, As matter fit for Chronicle, not verse, Vouchsafe to call to mind, that God did make A last, and lastingst piece, a song. He spoke To Moses, to deliver unto all, That song: because he knew they would let fall, The Law, the Prophets, and the History, But keep the song still in their memory. Such an opinion (in due measure) made Me this great Office boldly to invade. Nor could incomprehensibleness deter Me, from thus trying to imprison her. Which when I saw that a strict grave could do, I saw not why verse might not do so too. Verse hath a middle nature: heaven keeps souls, The grave keeps bodies, verse the same enrols. A FUNERAL ELEGY. 'tIs lost, to trust a Tomb with such a guest, Or to confine her in a Marble chest. Alas, what's Marble, jet, or Porphiry, Prized with the Chrysolite of either eye, Or with those Pearls, and Rubies which she was? join the two Indies in one Tomb, 'tis glass; And so is all to her materials, Though every inch were ten escurials. Yet she's demolished: Can we keep her then In works of hands, or of the wits of men? Can these memorial, rags of paper, give Life to that name, by which name they must live? Sickly, alas, short-lived, aborted be Those Carcase verses, whose soul is not she. And can she, who no longer would be she, Being such a Tabernacle, stoop to be In paper wrapped; Or, when she would not lie In such a house, dwell in an Elegy? But 'tis no matter; we may well allow Verse to live so long as the world will now. For her death wounded it. The world contains Princes for arms, and Counsellors for brains, Lawyers for tongues, Divines for hearts, and more, The Rich for stomaches, and for backs the Poor; The Officers for hands, Merchants for feet By which remote and distant Countries meet. But those fine spirits, which do tune and set This Organ, are those pieces which beget Wonder and love; And these were she; and she Being spent, the world must needs decrepit be. For since death will proceed to triumph still, He can find nothing, after her, to kill, Except the world itself, so great as she. Thus brave and confident may Nature be, Death cannot give her such another blow, Because she cannot such another show. But must we say she's dead? May't not be said That as a sundered Clock is piece-meal laid, Not to be lost, but by the maker's hand Repolished, without error then to stand, Or as the Africa Niger stream enwombs Itself into the earth, and after comes, (Having first made a natural bridge, to pass For many leagues,) far greater than it was, May't not be said, that her grave shall restore Her, greater, purer, firmer, than before? Heaven may say this, and joy in't; but can we Who live, and lack her, here this vantage see? What is't to us, alas, if there have been An Angel made a Throne, or Cherubin? We lose by't: And as aged men are glad Being tastlesse grown, to joy in joys they had, So now the sick starved world must feed upon This joy, that we had her, who now is gone. Rejoice then nature, and this world, that you Fearing the last fires hastening to subdue Your force and vigour, ere it were near gone, Wisely bestowed, and laid it all on one. One, whose clear body was so pure, and thin, Because it need disguise no thought within. 'Twas but a through-light scarf, her mind t'enroule, Or exhalation breathed out from her soul. One, whom all men who durst no more, admired; And whom, who ere had worth enough, desired; As when a Temple's built, Saints emulate To which of them, it shall be consecrate. But as when Heaven looks on us with new eyes, Those new stars every Artist exercise, What place they should assign to them they doubt, Argue, and agree not, till those stars go out: So the world studied whose this piece should be. Till she can be no bodies else, nor she: But like a Lamp of Balsamum, desired Rather t'adorn, than last, she soon expired; Clothed in her Virgin white integrity; For marriage, though it do not stain, doth die. To scape th'infirmities which wait upon Woman, she went away, before sh'was one. And the world's busy noise to overcome, took so much death, as served for opium. For though she could not, nor could choose to die, Shee'ath yielded to too long an Ecstasy. He which not knowing her sad History, Should come to read the book of destiny, How fair and chaste, humble and high shee'ad been, Much promised, much performed, at not fifteen, And measuring future things, by things before, Should turn the leaf to read, and read no more, Would think that either destiny mistook, Or that some leaves were torn out of the book. But 'tis not so: Fate did but usher her To years of Reasons use, and then infer Her destiny to herself; which liberty She took but for thus much, thus much to die. Her modesty not suffering her to be Fellow-Commissioner with destiny, She did no more but die; if after her Any shall live, which dare true good prefer, Every such person is her delegate, T'accomplish that which should have been her fate. They shall make up that book, and shall have thanks Of fate and her, for filling up their blanks. For future virtuous deeds are Legacies, Which from the gift of her example rise. And 'tis in heaven part of spiritual mirth, To see how well, the good play her, on earth. FINIS.