THE President of Presidents:
OR, AN ELEGIE, On the Death of JOHN BRADSHAW.
WHat! he that blasted
Tyranny with's breath,
Has he submitted now to
Tyrant Death!
Could he the fate of
Kingdoms doom? yet he
Not countermand prevailing Destiny.
Who could find
Law 'gainst
Law, condemn, and trie,
The
King-like Reason, God-like Maiesty;
Should have gone on, me-thinks, seen gasping lie
The
Queen of
Reason too,
Philosophy.
Nor should he have staid there, but by some new,
Strange
Judic'ture have
Censur'd Nature too.
But stay, Did
[...]
[...]ot think himself to be
Above the reach
[...]
[...]il Mortality?
[Having bee
[...]
[...]
[...]v'd
Senate die,
Himself beco
[...]
[...]us
[...]he
Property.
And Generati
[...]
[...]rom Corruption now,
Another rising from their overthrow.
And that aspiring
Pyramide to fall!
(The Father's greatnesse, the Son's funeral.)
And the forgotten
Carcase, that had lain
Disanimated long, revive again.
Assuming (what was thought for ever gone)
Their
Power, at their
Resurrection.]
And rising with 'em, thought himself to be
Invested with their
Immortality.
But, as a Flower on a
Chymist's call
Rais'd, to attend on its own funerall.
Short was their Time, and soon expir'd their Reigne,
Returning to their
Chaos back again.
Which
Bradshaw sadly viewing, sigh'd, that he
Must now submit t' imperious
Destiny.
For he, who kept their
Seal, while he had breath,
Has yielded now to the
Broad-Seal of
Death.
But some may be so sawcie as to prie
Into the Councel of the
Deitie:
Think
Justice is not hood-wink'd now, but blind;
Style
Murther Law, and
Cruelty most kind.
That
Bradshaw, (England's
Pilat) who durst own
The Act, of murthering his
Soveraign;
Usurp the seat of
Justice, doom to death,
Whom God himself had styl'd a god on earth:
That at one fatall Sentence, and one Blow,
Lay butcher'd Maj'stie, and three Kingdoms too.
Drest in his sanguine
Roabs, Law the pretence,
T'assasinate both
Law and
Innocence.
That, not the horrour of his crimes, nor sense
Of sin, could wake his sleeping
Conscience;
And on himself, like a foul o'recharg'd Gun,
Recoil, and be his own destruction.
Or was the Sword of Justice dull? had he
Brib'd that too, to comply with
Villany?
Must he expire in his soft bed? no force!
Could not the
Whitehall, where he died.
Place inspire him with
Remorce?Know, that his Crimes were such, transcended far
All Parallel, and must stand singular.
The wittiest Vengeance man could here invent,
Must fall far short of such a
President.
There is no name to know him by. Nay, we
Ought to forget him, that
Posterity,
Searching our
Records, might no pattern find,
This to Re-act, but damn it to Mankind.
Should man attempt this Punishment, it were
To rob just Heaven of its Vengeance here.
Oblivion ought to swallow the intent,
And this
Example find no
President.
⟨1659. July 2.⟩
T. B.