Katherine Stewkeley’s Epitaph

I came across this in All Saints’ Church, Hinton Ampner in Hampshire. Memorial inscriptions from this period are unremittingly laudatory: this one is intriguing. What had Katherine done, or become, to be “in some things misunderstood of Heights and Distances”? And what does “Whilst ’tis a Crime to be refin’d/Aboue the present Age” refer to?

---

KATHERINE, ye wife of Sir Hugh Stewkeley of Hinton
Ampner and Daughter and heire of Sir Iohn Trott, both of
this County Barrs. dyed Oct. 21st and was here buried
No: ye 7th 1679
Every stage of her life was adorn’d with its proper Character
she was an Obedient Daughter, a virtuous wife
An Indulgent Mother
She was equall to the Wisdom of the bravest of Men
Freindlie to the Ignorance of the meanest of Women
Yet she was not altogether exempt from the
Comon fate which attends all Eminencie of Parts
of being in some things misunderstood
Of Heights and Distances,
What certaine Judgment can the Vulgar make
Where in the wise with all their Art mistake
Those of mean Parts uncensur’d liue and Dye
They’ue nothing to provoke an Envious Eye
The dull oblige Mankind
And all their Loue Engage
Whilst ‘tis a Crime to be refin’d
Aboue the present Age.