198 The Duchess of Newcastle 



affairs, also I observed, that my mother, nor brothers, 

 before these wars, had ever any law-suites, but what 

 an attorney dispatched in a term with small cost, 

 but if they had, it was more than I knew of. But, as 

 I said, my mother lived to see the ruin of her children, 

 in which was her ruin, and then dyed: my brother 

 Sir Thomas Lucas soon after, my brother Sir Charles 

 Lucas after him, being shot to death for his loyall 

 service, for he was most constantly loyal and courage- 

 ously active, indeed he had a superfluity of courage; 

 my eldest sister died sometime before my mother, 

 her death being, as I believe, hastened through grief 

 of her onely daughter, on which she doted, being 

 very pretty, sweet natured, and had an extraordinary 

 wit for her age. She dying of a consumption, my sister, 

 her mother, died some half a year after of the same 

 disease ; and though time is apt to waste remembrance 

 as a consumptive body, or to wear it out like a gar- 

 ment into raggs, or to moulder it into dust; yet I 

 find the naturall affections I have for my friends, are 

 beyond the length, strength, and power of time : for 

 I shall lament the loss so long as I live, also the loss 

 of My Lord's noble brother, which died not long after 

 I returned from England, he being then sick of an 

 ague, whose favours and my thankfulness, ingratitude 

 shall never disjoyne; for I will build his monument 

 of truth, though I cannot of marble, and hang my 

 tears and scutchions on his tombe. He was nobly 

 generous, wisely valliant, naturally civill, honestly 

 kind, truly loving, virtuously temperate ; his promise 

 was like a fixt decree, his words were destiny, his 

 life was holy, his disposition milde, his behaviour 

 courteous, his discourse pleasing, he had a ready wit 

 and a spacious knowledge, a settled judgment, a cleer 

 understanding, a rationall insight ; he was learned in 



