fon. His face was pale, and marked with the small-pox: his features were good, and yet there was fomething fierce in his look, even when he was not difpleafed. He had fense and learning, and, with a large fortune, was a generous man; but paffionate to an amazing degree, for his understanding; and a trifle would throw him into a rage. He had been humoured in every thing from his cradle, on account of his fine eftate; from his infancy to his manhood, had been continually flattered, and in every thing obeyed. This made him opinionated and proud, obftinate, and incapable of bearing the leaft contradiction.

Bellinda Coot, his Lady, with whom he had been paffionately in love, was as fine a figure as could be feen among the daughters of men. Her perfon was charming; her face was beautiful, and had a fweetness in it that was pleafing to look at. Her vivacity was great, and her underftanding extraordinary; but fhe had a fatirical wit, and a vanity, which made her delight in fhewing the weaknefs of other minds, and the clearness of her own conception. She was too good, however, to have the least malice in fuch procedure. It was human weakness, and a defire to make her neighbours wifer. Unfortunately for

her,

her, fhe was married to a man, who, of all men in the world, was the unfitteft fubject for her quick fancy to act on.

But, notwithstanding this, Euftace and Bellinda were, for the most of their time, very fond. fond. As he was formed in a prodigality of nature, to fhew mankind a finifhed compofition, and had wit and charms enough to fire the dullest and most infenfible heart; a man of Orlando's tafte for the fex, could not be without an inflamed heart, when fo near the transporting object of defire. She was his delight for almoft a year, the dear fupport of his life. He feemed to value her efteem, her respect, her love; and endeavoured to merit them by the virtues which fortify love and therefore, when by his being fhort, pofitive, and unreafonable in his dictates, as was too often his wont; and on her being intemperate in the ftrong fentiments her imagination produced upon the occafion, which was too frequently the cafe; when they feemed to forget the Apoftle's advice for a while, that ye love one another with a pure heart, fervently; 1 Pet, i. 22. and had ftrifes and debates, which fhewed, for the time they lafted, that they were far from being perfect and entire, wanting nothing; then would her throwing her face into fmiles,

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fmiles, with fome tender expreffion, prove a reconciling method at once. Till the fatal night, this always had a power to foften pain, to eafe and calm the raging

man.

But poor at beft is the condition of human life here below; and, when to weak and imperfect faculties, we add inconfiftencies, and do not act up to the eternal law of reafon, and of God; when love of fame, curiofity, refentment, or any of our particular propenfities; when humour, vanity, or any of our inferior powers, are permitted to act against juftice and veraci ty, and instead of reflecting on the reason of the thing, or the right of the cafe, that by the influence this has on the mind, we may be conftituted virtuous, and attached to truth; we go down with the current of the paffions, and let bent and humour de termine us, in oppofition to what is decent and fit if in a ftate fo unfriendly as this is to the heavenly and divine life, where folly and vice are for ever striving to introduce diforder into our frame, and it is difficult indeed, to preferve, in any degree, an integrity of character, and peace withinif, in fuch a fituation, instead of labouring to destroy all the feeds of envy, pride, ill-will, and impatience, and endea

vouring

vouring to establish and maintain a due inward economy and harmony, by paying a perpetual regard to truth, that is, to the real circumftances and relation of things in which we ftand, -to the practice of reason in its juft extent, according to the capacities and natures of every being; we do, on the contrary, difregard the moral faculty, and become a mere fyftem of paffions and affections, without any thing at the head of them to govern them;-what then can be expected, but deficiency and deformity, degeneracy and guilty practice? This was the cafe of Euftace and Bellinda. Paffion and own-will were fo near and intimate to him, that he feemed to live under a deliberate refolution not to be governed by reafon. He would wink at the light he had, truggle to evade conviction, and make his mind a chaos and a hell. Bellinda, at the fame time, was too quick, too vain, and too often forgot to take into her idea of a good character, a continual fubordination of the lower powers of our nature to the fa culty of reafon. This produced the following scene..

Maria (filter to Bellinda) returned one evening with a five-guinea fan she had bought that afternoon, and was tedious in prailing fome Indian figures that were painted

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painted in it. Mrs. Euftace, who had a tafte for pictures, faid, the colours were fine, but the images were ridiculous and defpicable; and her fifter muft certainly be a little Indian-mad, or her fondness for every thing from that fide of the globe could not be fo exceffive and extravagant as it always appeared to be.

To this Maria replied with fome heat, and Euftace very peremptorily infifted upon it, that he was right. With pofitiveness and paffion, he magnified the beauties of the figures in the fan, and with violence reflected fo feverely on the good judgment Bellinda, upon all occafions, pretended to, (as he expreffed it) that at last, her imagination was fired, and, with too much eagerness, the not only ridiculed the opinion of her fifter, in respect of fuch things, but fpoke with too much warmth against the defpotic tempers of felf-fufficient husbands.

To reverence and obey (she said) was not required by any obligation, when men were unreasonable, and paid no regard to a wife's domeftic and perfonal felicity; nor would the give up her understanding to his weak determination, fince cuftom cannot confer an authority which nature has denied: It cannot license a husband to be unjust, nor give right to treat her as a flave. If this

was