Taylor dedicates his work to the Earl of Carbery. He had scarcely paid this tribute to his patron, when he was called upon to exercise his own firmness and administer conIsolation at Golden Grove. The life of the Earl's amiable Countess was now drawing to a close, of which he gives the following relation. "When death drew near, before it made any "show upon her body, or revealed itself by "a natural signification, it was conveyed to “her spirit: she had a strange secret per"suasion that the birth of the child, of "which she was then pregnant, should be "her last scene of life':" and "so it was, "that the thought of death dwelt long with "her, and grew from the first steps of fancy and "fear to a consent, from thence to a strange "credulity, and expectation of it; and with❝out the violence of sickness she died, as if "she had done it voluntarily, and by design, “and for fear her expectation should have "been deceived, or that she should seem "to have had an unreasonable fear, or appre"hension; or rather, (as one said of Cato) "sic abiit e vitâ ut causam moriendi nactum "se esse gauderet." " • Funeral Sermon on the Countess of Carbery. p. 131. Fol. Ενιαυτός. 1678. • Cic. Tusc. Quæst. Lib. 1. s. 30. This exemplary person died on the 9th of October 1650, and was interred in the neighbouring church of Llanfihangel Aberbythyck; where Taylor delivered a funeral sermon, in a strain of eloquence that has seldom been surpassed, and which he shortly after published, with the following dedication to the earl. * The first edition is 4to. Lond. 1650. Brit. Mus. It appears that the Earl of Carbery intended to erect a monument to her memory. and that Taylor wrote the inscription for it, of which the following is a copy. The monument was never erected. But the epitaph is preserved before the Funeral Sermon, with which it was published. Pietati & Memoriæ Sacrum. Monumentum doloris singularis, paris fati & conditionis posuit Richardus Comes Carberiensis sibi vivo, & mortem nec exoptanti Nec metuenti: Et dilectissimæ suæ Conjugi Francisca Comitissæ in flore orta Natalibus, fortunam non mediocrem "To the Right Honourable and truly Noble "Richard Lord Vaughan, Earl of Carbery, "Baron Emlin and Molinger, Knight of the "Honourable Order of the Bath. "I am not ashamed to profess that I pay "this part of service to your lordship most un willingly for it is a sad office to be the chief "minister in a house of mourning, and to pre"sent an interested person with a branch of. cypress and a bottle of tears. And indeed, my lord, it were more proportionable to your "needs to bring something that might alleviate "or divert your sorrow, than to dress the hearse "of your dear lady, and to furnish it with such "circumstances, that it may dwell with you, Mariam, Margaretam, & Althamiam (post cujus partum paucis diebus obdormiit.) Totam prolem Masculam (si demas abortivum illum) et fæminas omnes, præter Elizabetham alteram, & Mariam, superstites reliquit. Pietatis adeoque spei plena obiit ix Octobr. M.DC.L. Lachrymis suorum omnium tota irriqua conditur in hoc cœmeterio, ubi cum Deo Opt. Max. visum fuerit sperat se reponendum Conjux mæstissimus: interea temporis luctui, sed pietati magis vacat, ut in suo tempore simul lætentur Par tam Pium, tam Nobile, tam Christianum in gremio Jesu, usque dum Coronæ adornentur accipiendæ in Adventu Domini. Amen. Cum ille vita defunctus fuerit, Marmor loquetor, quod adhuc tacere jubet virtus Modesta: interim vitam ejus observa, et leges quod postea hic inscriptum amabunt & colent Posteri. ora & abi. 1 " and lie in your closet, and make your prayers "and your retirements more sad and full of weepings. But because the divine Provi"dence hath taken from you a person so excel lent, a woman so fit to converse with angels "and apostles, with saints and martyrs, give "me leave to present you with her picture, "drawn in little and in water colours, sullied "indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a "real and consonant sorrow; but drawn with a faithful hand, and taken from the life and "indeed it were too great a loss to be deprived "of her example and of her rule, of the origi"nal and of the copy too. "evil and deserved her not; The age is very but because it is "so evil, it hath the more need to have such "lives preserved in memory to instruct our 'piety, or upbraid our wickedness. 66 For "now that God hath cut this tree of paradise "down from its seat of earth, yet so the dead "trunk may support a part of the declining 66 temple, or at least serve to kindle the fire on "the altar. My lord, I pray God this heap of "sorrow may swell your piety till it breaks into "the greatest joys of God and of religion: and "remember when you pay a tear upon the grave, or to the memory of your lady (that "dear and most excellent soul) that you pay "two more: one of repentance for those things "that may have caused this breach; and an“other of joy for the mercies of God to your "dear departed saint, that he hath taken her "into a place where she can weep no more. My lord, I think I shall, so long as I live, "that is, so long as I am "Your lordship's "Most humble servant, "JER. TAYLOR." He grounds his discourse upon these words, out of 2 Sam. xiv. 14. "For we must needs "die, and are as water spilt on the ground " which cannot be gathered up again: neither "doth God respect any person: yet doth he "devise means that his banished be not ex pelled from him." On this occasion, all the energies of this great moralist were summoned; and though their extent can only be known by a careful perusal of the whole, yet something of their strength may be ascertained by such passages as the following. "No man is surer of to-morrow than the "weakest of his brethren. There are sicknesses "that walk in darkness, and there are exterminating angels that fly wrapt up in the cur 66 |