First line: ‘Adieu thou blest, and venerable Shade!’ In the title the word ‘the’ is probably missing before ‘Earl’. Edward Stanley, afterwards the 11th Earl of Derby, married Elizabeth Hesketh on 14 September 1714. The Earl died on 22 February 1776, the Countess two days later.
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Transcript
On the Countess of Derby | dying immediately after Earl, to whom | She had been married above sixty years
Adieu thou blest, and venerable Shade!
Peace guard the mansion, where by dust is laid.
Since all the charms, these lower scenes afford,
In vain could hold thee from thy honor’d Lord,
But wing’d at once thy kindred spirits fly
From earth to bless each other in the Sky;
There may you crown’d with happiness review
A length of years permitted but to few,
Prolong’d by virtues which illum’d your way,
And mildly mark’d the evening of your day.
Drawn at the call of opulence, and state,
Tho’ Plenty spread her treasure at your gate,
Tho’ far and wide you saw diffus’d your fame,
And crouds in blessing hail’d the Stanley name;
Tho’ in no stem the boast of virtue shine
Of worthy Sires a more illustrious line,
With equal hand who held the steady Scale,
As Kings have wished, or faction to prevail;
Witness their glory, when the brave and good
Saw Richard fall, and Bosworth drench’d in blood,
Witness the time when fury seem’d a band
Of rebel rioters to waste the land;
When Derby rose his injur’d prince to shield,
And led his trusty legions to the field;
When one (X) {1} brave House two rolling years cou’d boast,
To bid defiance to a madding host;
And blest by all but thankless Chares {2} alone,
Both life and treasures went to guard the throne;
Tho’ all the virtues of the storied page,
Have liv’d afresh within this later age,
And ancient worth emblaz’d XX {3} one honor’d name,
The Statesman’s wisdom, and Patriot’s flame,
One honor’d name, on whose untimely bier
Each friend to public virtue dropt a tear;
Tho’ then the honors which adorn your hearse,
A nobler Eulogy shall fill the verse;
For less I deem the praise for veins to hold,
Transmitted blood from trophied Sires of old,
Than to display in mild domestic life,
In this loose age the husband, and the wife.
Together in the still sequester’d plain
For near an age you blest the nuptial chain,
No midnight rivel†, pestilential air
E’er {4} mark’d your faces with a wan despair;
From croud to croud the pleasurable roam
Ne’er stole your heart felt happiness from home.
Unchang’d XXX {5} through life the ample round you trod,
Dear to each other, and belov’d by God,
Whilst each fond partner from the other side
Not age cou’d sever, or the Grave divide.
Look up ye ill starr’d couples, if your sight
Can bear the gaze of such upbraiding light,
Ye senseless slaves of fashion’s giddy reign
Unpair’d by love who drag the galling chain,
And lost in noise and folly have recourse
From Hymen’s furies to a vile divorce,
Look up and own, that in the glittering way
Where fashion calls, and crouds for ever stray,
Naught with more beauty strikes the raptur’d eye
Than love protected by the nuptial tye:
Than love, which nourish’d from an early root
Gains strength by years, and spreads in many a shoot
Nor dies with age, but perserveres to bloom
Fresh and unwither’d e’en beyond the tomb.
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{1} Note on the facing page (f. 78v): ‘(X) The seige of Lathen House in the great rebellion’.
{2} A slip for ‘Charles’.
{3} Note on the facing page (f. 78v): ‘XX The late Lord Strange’.
{4} Or ‘Ee’er’.
{5} Note on the facing page (f. 81v): ‘Sans changer The family Motto.
† Sic.