hugo grotius HIS Consolatory ORATION TO HIS FATHER. Translated out of the Latin Verse, and Prose. With EPITAPHS &c. By F: G. LONDON, Printed by W. H. and are to be sold by John Hardesty at the Black-spred-Eagle in Duck-lane. To His Honoured Friend and Kinsman, ARTHUR HERRIS Of Lincoln's inn, Esq Sir, THe happiness, that Jacob had, to find Joseph again, and in so glorious a condition; may not unfitly be fancied a Type of having our decea●ed children restored to us at the Resurrection. Every good Christian Parent ●herefore may be comforted with this hope: to which I here add a Consolatory Discourse, made in his younger years, by ●he( even then) learned Grotius. I am sorry I have so seasonable and sad occasion ●f applying it to yourself, who have ●…tely lost a beloved, and only Daughter. Your Dudley Herris had in her life-time some acquaintance with my Sophompaneas, and a desire to have seen Him in public. But her chaste and pious soul( whose Lamp was so well trimmed with oil of spiritual Graces) is gone to mee● the Heavenly Bridegroom; and the door are now shut against any mixture o● Earthly Cogitations. Nevertheless, ma●… her Name and Memory, if these my papers have a Genius, live here in Them and( thus at least) may she still dwe●… with Your affectionate Cousin & Servant, Francis Goldsmit● Hugo grotius HIS Consolatory Oration to his Father, Upon the death of his Brother FRANCIS. A Youth's sad obsequies, our college Hall In mourning pomp, thy solemn funeral I saw, O Brother▪ I thee, this last one Office I could, of blood & love have done. I and a child chiefe-mourners were, but he A child, and therein happy did not see The fiery feaverraging in each vein, And frantic fits of thy distempered brain. Nor when he did thy breathless limbs and cold, And thy so much changed eyes and face behold, Wept he; nor did perceive his Brother gone. Nor, when the bell rung out and sadly on The bier thy corpse were laid, did he forgo ●childs prerogative, grief not to know. But when thy body was put in the ground, And from our eyes quite hid, O than he found A loss so manifest, from his young years His Brother to be seen no more drew tears. Nor did, about the grave, the company There standing round their tears and sighs deny, When a child's cheeks were wet: the force was such, It did even strangers hearts with pity touch. At this funeral, I say, I with our little William was chief mourner. And who, than I, had better right? For if in mourning we weigh the loss of friendship, my parent's degree of inequality, my sister's sex; my brother's tender age kept them at a greater distance from the deceased. But I joined unto him in an equal familiarity of kindred, how little wanted I of being a twin with him! The same studies too gave occasion of mutual offices. And he might even in this respect be no less dear unto me, then in that he was a brother. I say thus least, when I comfort you, you may think, a sound man gives counsel to a sick. You have one a partner with you in sorrow; yea who contends in mourning, and ye● is bold not only to comfort himself, but to communicate unto others the experiment of that, which he hath found to be good against his own grief. First therefore let me see, whether I ought not to fear, lest I may rub wound too fresh, and as yet not closed up with a scar whilst I run to apply overhasty remedies. I suppose not. For I speak both unto a man, and a father, whom the very custom of our Country forbids to prolong hi● mourning beyond the burial. Surely parents have no● so great cause, as the common people think, to grieve as not to grieve; and even in this, that they have begotten Children, find comfort. It was much, but it came from nature, of him, who said: I knew I had begot a mortal. we deceive ourselves, if we do not daily think, that they shall not always be▪ who without us had never been. See how great the perverseness of man's disposition is. To lack children is not grievous, but to those who have had them. And yet Bachelors are no less childless than others; but they mourn not. Why then should we not lose without tears what without tears we could have wanted? Many are the pleas for vice; and not only covetousness, and ambition, and luxury come under this name, but also excessive and unreasonable grief: I could have wished he had survived me according to the course of Nature; I grieve that having had proof of his piety, I might no longer use and enjoy it: I have lost him, whose help might have been both to the service of his country, and comfort of myself. These are the words of them that favour their own misery, this is witty calamity. Apples downfall, and the surviving Tree Doth her dead fruit, but with a dry bark▪ see. Nor is unhappy called, that she lives then. False arguments of grief please wretched men. Whose eyes in tears, at his son's death, shall swim, He weeps because his son weeps not for him. You have lost a good son: It is better than to have had an ill. You have lost your pains in his education: I may object unto you a recompense of joy, which you took in his towardness. But this also is now gone, and it troubles you. If you be wise, account it gain that you have had it, rather than damage that you have lost it. You are sure of the fruit of a past good: this can neither be taken away, nor cease at any time; and is only beyond the envy of fate. It is not the part of the same man, to grieve that it hath not befallen him long, yet not to rejoice, that it hath happened at all. See therefore, how much happier you are then those who never had a son▪ and yet they mourn not. But if we account children goods, and certainly they are the chiefest, it is better not to have had them long, than never. For, even when they are taken from us, the remembrance of them remains still; a great delight to a grateful mind. You see then, parents have very little cause to grieve, if we weigh grief not according to the vulgar opinion, but right reason: Besides, that the majesty of a parent's authority, and that sacred dominion of nature unbecommingly stoops so low, as to bewail him dead, of whose life yourself were the author; and to submit your passions to him, whose passions you are commanded to rule over. Have a care, you do nothing misbeseeming the high dignity of a parent's name, in which God and Nature have placed you; and yet upon her we list to lay the fault of our impatiency: neither is any defence so ready, even of womanish lamentation, as that it proceeds from Nature. But we are guilty of manifest calumny, in imputing our crime to her. We all give way to grief, yea most of us enforce it; so pleasing it is, than which yet nothing is more unpleasing. No man is more miserable than he thinks himself; and grief no less, than other things, is upheld by opinion. We deserve therefore to be oppressed with grief, if we will not suppress it. The lowing dam her lost calf to lament Is heard; yet her dumb grief's in one day spent. Nor the swift Mare, through woods and fields to run, Tossing her main, is seen by next day's sun, Though of her foal bereft. When the wild Bear Robbed of her whelps goes ranging everywhere Through pathless deserts; oft comes back again, And her forsaken den sees oft in vain, Her grief and rage with the first night is gone. About her empty nest a bird make moan I have beheld, and oft her young brood call, Yet to her wont flights again soon fall. Only man hugs his woe, his sorrow he Provokes by favouring: ourselves wretched we By thinking make: yet grief not all men finds Alike, nor equal sway holds in our minds. In them, who know least, it takes up most room: The barbarous Queen with a stupendous Tomb Fondly to honour her dead spouse contrives, Whilst of herself a maimed part she survives. Not so those Nations by right reason taught, Whose hearts with truth are and Religion fraught. Women their bosoms beat with their weak arms: And with their fists give sorrow fresh alarms: Mothers their bare breasts tear, in showers their eyes Dissolve; they tremble with astonished cries. Grief is more stayed in men: this difference The sex makes, take at Nature no offence, Who under the same law all people keeps. Then length of Time dries up the eye that weeps, Nature yields not to Time. If longer day Can make a quiet mind, scorn thou delay: A wise man's his own Time; shall grief be quelled Against my will, and I to joy compelled? Among those reasons which dissuade from lamenting for the dead, this is even a chief, that we must forbear a grief which is in vain, which may add us to them, cannot bring back them to us. Let that sorrow cease, which if it cease not, nothing avails. We shall sooner want tears then matter for tears, which this Universe continually suggests: and whereas therefore nothing ought to be more precious, nor are they rashly to be shed, of which there is so much use: on the contrary, we are of nothing so prodigal; and indeed, when we have least cause. Many are the evils which surprise a man unawares. But, than the death of him and his, nothing is more certain. We must not weep for that done, which, that it would come to pass, we were not ignorant of. What do the so frequent sounds of passing bells signify, but that no is nature's favourite? Other's mischances daily admonish us, that they are common: and yet when so many funerals pass before our eyes, when we follow so many to burial, we dare begin hopes of long life; as if privileged from that eternal law, and not placed in the same slippery condition with the whole world. And hence it is, that these strokes more hurt us, because they are less foreseen. Why cease we not then to complain of the iniquity of fate, who know well enough that some are daily stricken, but that all are aimed at? If, as we ought, we did often think on what we always see, the force of present evils would be abated, whilst we consider future. What marvel is it that he is dead, whom so many have gone before, and all shall follow? I could here bring in many examples of them, and indeed of great personages, who have lost their Children: but in this empire of fortune it would be a much harder task to find out a House or Family not remarkable for some affliction, or that hath stood entire and unshaken to the end. I find also that the Ancients have used this kind of consolation; that we go the way of all the world, and of the Nature of things: That nothing is eternal. That all things are born on this condition, that whatsoever had a beginning, must have an ending: and that one family cannot without impotent arrogancy think to escape from that ruin which the whole world expects. That whatsoever we call miracles, even most famous Cities which yet are longer lived then men, have perished. This indeed is something, not to be willing to challenge privately to himself a grief, whose cause is public; and to submit his sorrow to common mortality: but we have far greater comforts given us in the soul's immortality, which we attain by an assured faith. He is not taken away from us, but taken again by God, whom he had granted us during his own pleasure, and did but lend him. Your son had one, whose he was more than yours. God gave you him to bring up, not a freehold in him. Restore what was committed to your trust: you know how the bargain was: there was a condition, that, when it seemed good unto him, you should surrender him: nor were you to have the use of him, until you were satisfied, but during his divine determination. A good Housholder hath that money always ready, for the payment of which no certain day was set. What debtor is so ingrateful as to rail on his creditor, and take it ill he may have no longer use of what was lent upon courtesy, and on no other condition then that it should at length return, whence it came? Which I say also, lest your grief find this starting hole, that he is not at a more mature age demanded of you. He requires him not too soon, who might have not given him at all: and if we look upon him you mourn for, it skils not how long he lived, but how well. Now of that matter we are witnesses. He must needs have lived well, who dies so. He must needs die well, who lived so. We all count others years, whereas we should take thankfully what are given us, and not look upon those, which appertain not to us. He might have lived longer. No, he could not. This was his old age. Only so many years he had: More he received not: Why complain we? It is our fault, who are never content with time past, and reckon but upon the present, that is, a moment. It is all one at this day, to have lived your years about fifty and his of eighteen. If we regard the swiftness of time, no man lives long, if the misery, none but lives too long. That this life is a pilgrimage, even the Philosophers have taught; Let us gratulate him, who hath been showed a shorter way to his journey's end. In Thrace, by the sea shore, a creature lives, * A●istot, Animal. l 5. c. 19 ( Old History such information gives, And hath these wonders put in her Records,) Which on its birth day dies. Nature affords But one day's life; which with the morning light Begins, the daystar chasing away Night. And when the Sun hath half-way Westward gone, The Beast of middle age is, but old grown, When Day as yet not fully gives Night place; Thus short the course is, thus ends the swift race. Now could what in the morning dies have spoke, It might complain, life's thread was too soon broke. That, which at midday death shall overtake, Would grudgingly cross o'er the Stygian Lake. But what in th' evening dies, more willingness Perhaps might show, and its old age confess. Not that twelve hours so great a number are, But that ourselves with others we compare. The Raven give her no more years than man, Would cry, her Ell was shortened to a Span. We, never pleased at home, are looking on Our neighbour: were none happy, wretched none Will think himself. It would great wisdom be, What others have, as not our own, to see. Who knows from what evil that provident Parent hath withdrawn your son? How quite contrary to the hopes, which they had raised, hath the disposition of many been perverted! how many vices are abroad at this day, what corruptions! Although God forbid I should make this augury of him, yet we may be glad, that he is not only past danger, but beyond fear. He had his, almost daily, tormentor, the colic; which not content always to torture, would at length have killed him. If he had gone with the army, what hazards had he been liable to! A wise saying was that of Syrus: What may happen to one man, may happen to every one. Imagine before your eyes maimed men and buried already in a part of them; the butchery of chirurgeons, who pick the bones of the living: all which who would not abhor worse than death? But let us suppose the least. Yet he had died far from the sight of his most dear mother. We should neither have heard of his sickness, nor of his death: we could not have prepared our hearts for the loss: nor have been a help or a comfort to him. We should have doubted still, with what mind he took his death, which I suppose to be a chief matter. These are the evils, which our first thoughts suggest to us: But we are sottishly ignorant, if not yet taught even by our own example, how many, and much more grievous those evils be, which come upon us so much as dreaming on them. Many, Father, many discommodities is he delivered from by a timely death; and if from no other, certainly from old age. See this also, how many comforts his very death may afford you: He died in a slippery age; and not of a sudden, but slow disease, so, that for a long while he might perceive himself to die: Which you perhaps may think a part of his misery, I, of his felicity: Especially whereas the pain was not extreme. For so it comes to pass, that not only the body itself is tamed, but also by how much it decays, so much the soul improves; there follows a loathing of life, and a desire of eternal happiness. Would to God you indeed had seen him, and heard, with how great a fortitude he did challenge death. The despairing of that health, which we wished him, made him to be assured of a better. I will say more: God hath called him to himself not without a miracle. He was taken with a frenzy, and the contagion of his sick body had also infected his mind. Yet as often as he was admonished of death, salvation, God, as if this only concerned him, he so answered, as that in every word he showed a good understanding. But of the things of this present life he was nothing at all sensible. O unhappy we if good health had in this case surprised him! Yet once there did appear I know not what hope thereof; which, as you confess, doth the more trouble you. Surely God made made an experiment in him, whether so indeed he would still be out of love with life. But the pious youth submitted himself wholly to his will, being prepared on either side. How great a benefit is it, that God hath called us to be witness the●eof! that we saw him blaming the delay of death, and with an unconquered breast proclaiming as it were this very Verse: drop reg've lived, and run the race, which God me gave. But death itself, you will say, is grievous; and that of the ancients not altogether true: That it is natural, and therefore not painful. First, whatsoever it is, it is now past. He seeks for sorrow where it is not, who grieves that his have been miserable: Nothing is more agreeable unto Nature, then to rejoice at the end of evil. But what? What if to die be indeed no evil? And this hath been believed even by the Philosophers. We Christians go further, and dare with Paul to say: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. This is the only gate to eternal life: This is that, over which He the first fruits of the dead hath triumphed; we therefore hear the Apostle to contemn his sting. For our health's sake we take poison in potions, and what soever else is loathsome to nature: what should we not undergo to enjoy a perpetual and unchangeable health? Valiantly then, valiantly let us endure, both death and the loss of our friends! Christians have no colour for mourning, unless that we mourn for ourselves, who have lost, yea rather who have but sent them before us. And how foul and misbecoming is this very sorrow! Who is he, that is so much a self-seeker, and so envious of his friend's happiness, as to call back them, who are blessed, to take part with him in misery? If you would do any thing for your son's sake, if there be any respect to be had to his ghost, do what you think he would have you do, if he hath any care at all of human affairs. Surely he would take it ill, you should be afflicted for his sake, who being placed above the mockeries of fortune, looks down from aloft on the business of mortals. Him wondering at his glorious house of Rest, Heaven holds for ever: no more now oppressed With public, nor with private sorrow, he From hopes and fears▪ from sin and pain is free. Who filled with true light smiles at mists below, And that but empty names of things we know. And thus much indeed I have said in general, There are also very many other reasons you may suggest unto yourself in private. See Sulpitius writing to Tully: think in what manner hitherto fortune hath dealt with us: that those things are taken away from us, which ought unto men to be no less dear than children. add but this one evil, and how can grief be raised higher? or what mind exercised in these calamities ought not to grow insensible, and to esteem more lightly of all things? So many miseries are lost, if we Are not by suffering hardened, nor to be Wretched yet learn. Hence also comes relief, 'Tis good to have been familiar with grief. An Epitaph ON Mrs DUDLEY HERRIS. WHose Mind was, than her face, more fair, Though both were good; her father's heir, And( for which men should choose a wife) Of a devout and harmless life: A Virgin hath us left in woe, The Lamb, wherever he shall go, To follow: let us then no more Say, she is lost, but gone before.