The Praise of a Godly Woman — Edition Insights

A Sermon Built on Authorities

The sermon's structure relies on a dense network of biblical verses and patristic citations. Gamon invokes Hezekiah, Ambrose's eulogies for Valentinian and Theodosius, and Jerome's praises of Paula and Marcella to establish a tradition of holy deathbed commendation. The text is punctuated by footnotes keyed to scripture (e.g., Proverbs 31, Ecclesiasticus) and church fathers, with Latin quotations often left untranslated. This method suggests the sermon was designed for a learned audience familiar with the Vulgate and patristic literature. Gamon's own voice emerges only in the dedicatory epistle, where he acknowledges the risk that 'formall Hypocrites are heartned' by false praise, but insists that true saints' commendations serve God's glory.

The Deceased as Scriptural Composite

Lady Frances Roberts is described almost entirely through biblical archetypes: she is compared to Rachel for service to parents, Ruth for loyalty to kin, and Esther for risking her life for her people. Gamon calls her a 'Crowne vnto her Huſband' and declares 'Her Grace is aboue Gold,' echoing Proverbs 31. The sermon's longest passages catalogue the benefits of a godly wife—'a Tower againſt Death,' 'a greater Bleſſing than either Houſe or Inheritance'—but these are generic praises drawn from Ecclesiasticus and Proverbs. Specific details of Lady Frances's life, such as her charitable works or household management, are absent from the excerpts. The sermon thus presents a idealized portrait assembled from scripture rather than personal testimony.

Typographical and Textual Particulars

The 1627 edition, printed by I.H. for John Grismond, retains original spelling and punctuation, including u/v and i/j substitutions. The transcriber's notes indicate that some Latin marginalia were illegible and required collaborative research. The sermon's title page includes two epigraphs—1 Corinthians 4:5 and Galatians 3:28—the latter emphasizing that in Christ 'there is Neither Male nor Female.' This scriptural framing, alongside Jerome's assertion that 'in the service of Christ the difference of sexes avails nothing, but of minds,' suggests a theological argument for spiritual equality that the sermon's content may develop further. The physical book, sold at the sign of the Gun in Ivy Lane, places it within London's commercial print trade.

Readers approaching this text should attend to the interplay between the sermon's stated purpose—to commemorate a specific individual—and its actual method, which subsumes that individual into a scriptural pattern. The catalog subjects classify it as a funeral sermon and a specimen of 17th-century English preaching, but the excerpts reveal a work more concerned with constructing an ideal than recording a life. The dense apparatus of footnotes and Latin quotations rewards careful study of how Gamon weaves his authorities, while the absence of personal detail invites reflection on the conventions of early modern funeral oratory.

Reading this sermon, I’m reminded of how I once held a book that felt more like a mirror of its author’s mind than a portrait of its subject—much like The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Volume 2 (of 3) — Story, Setting & Ideas, where the biographer’s obsessions kept overshadowing the painter. Both left me with a quiet ache, wondering who the real person behind the words might have been.