AN ELEGY On the DEATH of The Lord Chief Justice HALES: Who died December 26. 1676.
BRing your Oblations, Poet-laureat Wits,
Here is a Subject your best Art befits.
From me a meaner Offering must suffice;
Who have no Brain for such a Sacrifice:
But what needs an Encomium? Silly Verse
Does but debase this honourable Herse.
Is the blest Saint ascended up to rest?
His holy Life and his Love-labours ceast?
Good devout Simeon! Such was his Decease,
Clasps his Redeemer, and departs in peace.
What Heart droops not at his departing hence?
'Tis as the Sun set, his set influence.
Like that great Light, rejoycing in his Sphere,
He ran his Circuit profiting every where:
With an impartial hand turn'd Justice Scale,
The poor mans Patron, helpt where fees did fail.
A ruling great Example of the Gown,
True to himself, his Countrey and the Crown.
In all times fixt: so well he kept his ground,
He seem'd the Ax on wch the wheel went round.
High above Praise, his own works well exprest,
And better prove, He knew most and did best.
Hence petty grief! Death here wounds a whole nation,
It calls for more than common lamentation.
Church and State, put on black! Mourn Friends, mourn all.
The Loss is vast and Epidemical.
This worthy Pillar being faln to ground,
Where is another Atlas to be found?
Where such a Healer? where so right an Eye?
Sage to discern and faithful to apply.
You of the long Robe, in each Inns-a-Court,
To Coke's great name add Hales his good report,
May it prove sem'nal of your Excellence
In propagating Law and Conscience.
A thousand Phoenix (if it may be) rise
Out of his Ashes, good (like him) and wise:
To build up Justice, Wrongs and Vice asswage,
And reinforce the beggar'd bankrupt Age,
In whom surviving it may yet be said,
The Oracle of Law still lives, though dead.
The EPITAPH.
INgenious Reader, stay and drop a tear,
Englands great Darling and Defence lies here.
Weep widow'd Nation, weep till streams do fall,
Like a kind Bride: His Love was Conjugal.
Licensed.
Jan. 5. 1677.
Ro. L'Estrange.
Printed for the AUTHOR. MDCLXXVII.