AN
ELEGY
ON
Sir GEORGE JEFFEREYS,
Late Lord Chancellor of England; who died Prisoner in the Tower of London,
April the 18th. 1689.
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THe World grows old, and Nature doth begin
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To faint, and be defatigate in Sin.
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She bringeth forth (as wearied of Mankind)
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Men to the Eye, but Monsters in the mind;
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Whose hearts do sacrifice for vain delight,
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Their Souls, and Conscience to their Appetite:
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Sin-servers, as they never were to die,
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Not minding endless long Eternity.
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This wicked Wretch, the Church of England's stain,
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The Nations Ruin, and the Kingdoms bane,
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Great Brittain's Blush, and Bloody Butcher too,
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By Demonstration, proves this to be true:
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Whose Heart was brutish, more than Face or Eyes,
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In whom the shape of Man was in disguise:
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A Judge whose Parallel you seldom saw,
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Which murder'd Justice, and out-liv'd the Law.
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The reeking Steem of his fresh Villanies,
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Would spot the Stars, and tann the very Skies;
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But that the Good Jehova doth begin
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To hide our faults, and dissipate our Sin.
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He from his Birth Ambitious was, and proud;
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Without respect to Justice, bad, or good:
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Aspiring still Promotion's Tower (from whence)
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Ambition breaks the Neck of Conscience.)
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And when his Pride had sprung unto its height,
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(Like Jonahs Gourd) it wither'd in a Night.
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Within a Sconce of Loyalty perverted,
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He Government to Anarchy Converted.
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Both Church and State, he boldly did presume,
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To Holocaust unto the Rage of Rome.
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And in one Word, he England Butcher'd up;
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To fill the Whore's Abominable Cup,
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The West of England is a Page too small,
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For his great Crimes, to write them one and all:
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It will not bear their blackness, till there be
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A Penetration of Impiety.
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And yet Historians cry them out aloud,
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And write them down, in Characters of Bloud:
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That, like a Beacon, they may blaze, and be
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A Caveat, to our Posterity;
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And Weather-Cocks, with Mountibanks of State,
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May know their doom, and read their Future Fate.
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Sum all the Vices of this wicked Age,
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Which have been acted on this World's Stage;
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To his they're Cyphers; and I am struck dumb,
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When I think on his Epicedium.
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Poor Widdows Tears, and begging Orphans Cries,
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Sound forth his Life, and sing his Obsequies.
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Then neither Praise, nor Stigmatize his Name;
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His Life's Indented on the Wings of Fame:
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That Fame which will his cruel deeds recal,
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And make them fresh to Generations all.
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But since Deaths Issues do belong to God,
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(Who makes such Judges oft, a Nations Rod.)
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Judge not his Soul; for God (and only he)
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In Christ, can set the greatest Sinner free.
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HEre Englands Great Lord Chancellor is laid,
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Who King, and Kingdom, Church and State, be-tray'd.
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His Life was Bloody, byass'd, and did tend
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To open Crimes, and Villanies, in end,
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Had not an Orange choak'd the Lyons rage,
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He'd Butcher'd Britain on a Babel-Stage.
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He Murder'd Justice, in Pretence of Law
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Cheated the Hang-man, and Tyburnia.
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But may his Crimes and Blood-shed silent lie,
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And ne'er against the English Nation cry.
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By N.H.
At the Request of the Widows of the West,
whose Husbands were Hang'd without Tryal,
by this Lord Chancellor.
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