was to be the cafe in matrimony, and women were to fuffer under conjugal vexations, as fhe did, by his fenfeless arguments every day, they had better bear the reproach and folitude of antiquated virginity, and be treated as the refuse of the world, in the character of old maids.

This too lively, though just speech, enraged Euftace to the last degree, and from a fury, he funk in a few minutes into a total fullen filence, and fat for half an hour, while 1 ftayed, cruelly determining, I fuppofe, her fad doom. Bellinda foon faw fhe had gone too far, and did all that could be done to recover him from the fit he was in. She fmiled, cried, asked pardon; but 'twas all in vain. Every charm had loft its power, and he feemed no longer man. When this beauty ftood weep+ ing by his chair, and faid, My love, forgive me, as it was in raillery only I spoke, and let our pleasures and pains be here after honeftly fhared; I remember the tears burft from my eyes, and in that condition I went away. It was frightful to look at Euftace, as he fhook, ftarted, and wildly ftared; and the diftrefs his Lady appeared in, was enough to make the moft ftony heart bleed: it was a difmal fcene.

This happened at nine at night, and at ten Orlando withdrew to bed, without fpeaking one word, as I was informed. Soon after he lay down, he pretended to be faft afleep, and his wife rejoicing to find him fo, as fhe believed, in hopes that nature's foft nurfe would lull the active instruments of motion, and calm the raging operations of his mind; fhe refigned herfelf to flumbers, and thought to abolish for that night every difagreeable fenfation of pain: but no fooner did this furious man find that his charming wife was really afleep, than he plunged a dagger into her breaft. The monfter repeated the ftrokes, while fhe had life to speak to him, in the tendereft manner, and conjured him, in regard to his own happinefs, to let her live, and not fink himself into perdition here and hereafter, by her death. In vain fhe prayed; he gave her a thousand wounds, and I faw her the next morning a bloody, mangled corpfe, in the great house in Smithfield, which ftood at a distance from the street, with a wall before it, and an avenue of high trees up to the door; and not in the country, as the Tatler fays.

Euftace fled, when he thought fhe was expiring, (though fhe lived for an hour after, to relate the cafe to her maid, who

heard

heard her groan, and came into her room). and went from Dublin to a little lodge he had in the country, about twenty miles from town. The magiftrates, in a fhort time, had information where he was; and one John Manfel, a conftable, a bold and ftrong man, undertook, for a reward, to apprehend him. To this purpose, he fet out immediately, with a cafe of pistols, and a hanger, and lurked feveral days and nights in the fields, before he could find an opportunity of coming at him; for Euftace lived by himself in the house, well fecured by ftrong doors and bars, and only went out now and then, to an alehouse, the mafter of which was his friend. Near it, at last, about break of day, Manfel chanced to find him, and, upon his refufing to be made a prifoner, and cocking at piftol to fhoot the officer of juftice, both their piftols were discharged at once, and they both dropt down dead men. Eustace was fhot in the heart, and the constable in the brain. They were both brought to Dublin on one of the little low-back'd cars there ufed; and I was one of the boys that. followed the car, from the beginning of James-Street, the out-fide of the city, all thro' the town. Euftace's head hung dangling near the ground, with his face upwards, and his torn bloody breast bare; B 6

and

and of all the faces of the dead I have feen, none ever looked like his. There was an anxiety, a rage, a horror, and a despair to be feen in it, that no pencil could exprefs.

The apology for the mar ried ftate continued.

§. 3. Thus fell Eustace in the 29th year of his age, and by his hand his virtuous, beautiful, and ingenious wife and

what are we to learn from thence? Is it, that on fuch accounts, we ought to dread wedlock, and never be concerned with a wife? No, furely; but to be from thence convinced, that it is neceffary, in order to a happy marriage, to bring the will to the obedience of reafon, and acquire an equanimity in the general tenour of life. Of all things in this world, moral dominion, or the empire over ourselves, is not only the moft glorious, as reason is the fuperior nature of man, but the most valuable, in refpect of real human happinefs. A conformity to reafon, or good fenfe, and to the inclination of our neighbours, with very little money, may produce great and lasting felicity; but without this fubfervience to our own reason, complaifance to company, and foftness and benevolence to all around us, the greateft 5 mifery

mifery does frequently fprout from the largest stock of fortunes.

It was by ungoverned paffions, that Eu ftace murdered his wife, and died himself the moft miferable and wretched of all human beings. He might have been the happieft of mortals, if he had conformed to the dictates of reafon, and foftened his paffions, as well for his own ease, as in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. There is a fort of fex in fouls; and, exclufive of that love and patience which our religion requires, every couple fhould remember, that there are things which grow out of their very natures, that are pardonable, when confidered as fuch. Let them not, therefore, be spying out faults, nor find a fatisfaction in reproaching; but let them examine to what confequences their ideas tend, and refolve to ceafe from cherishing them, when they lead to contention and mifchief. Let them both endeavour to amend what is wrong in each other, and act as becomes their character, in practising the focial duties of married perfons, which are fo frequently and strongly inculcated by revelation and natural reason; and then, instead of matrimony's being a burthen, and hanging a weight upon our very beings,

there