Man’s life is measur’d by the work, not days,
No aged sloth, but active youth hath praise.
On an altar, in the same taste, but differently ornamented, sits the statue of the Lady Elizabeth Russel, the daughter of Lord Russel. This statue is of white alabaster, and the Lady is represented in a sleeping posture. Your guides say, that she died with a prick of her finger; but this story has no other foundation, than a misapprehension of the statuary’s design; for having represented her asleep, and pointing with her finger to a death’s head under her right foot, it has been supposed, by the position of her finger pointing downwards, that it was bleeding, and that this had closed her eyes in death; though the artist’s design seems rather to allude to the composed situation of her mind at the approach of death, which she considered only as a profound sleep, from which she was again to wake to a joyful resurrection, of which the motto under her feet, is an evident illustration; Dormit, non mortua est; “She is not dead, but sleepeth.” The Latin inscription on the scroll beneath, only tells that this monument was erected to her memory by her afflicted sister Anne. The device is an eagle, the emblem of eternity, resting on a florilege of roses, &c.
Within the iron rails that inclose this last monument, is a magnificent one to the memory of John Lord Russel, son and heir to Francis Earl of Bedford, and of his young son Francis, by Elizabeth the daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, Knt. This monument is of various coloured marble and alabaster, and is adorned with gilding. Lord Russel is represented lying in his robes, with his infant son at his feet. His Lady, who erected this tomb, was esteemed the Sappho of the age, and was not only an excellent poetess, but mistress of the learned languages; and five epitaphs on this tomb are of her composition, three of which are in Latin, one in Greek, and the other in English, which last is here transcribed as a specimen of the rest, that are to the same purpose:
Right noble twice, by virtue, and by birth,
Of Heaven lov’d, and honour’d on the earth:
His country’s hope, his kindred’s chief delight,
My husband dear, more the world’s fair light,
Death hath me ’reft. But I from death will take
His memory, to whom this tomb I make.