The MISERABLE EFFECTS of giving Way to PASSION and RESENTMENT, exemplified in the Hiftory of Mr. EUSTACE, related by JOHN BUNCLE, Efq.

HEN I was a little boy in Dublin, between seven and eight, Mr. Euftace and his lady lived next door W to my father in Smithfield, and the two families were intimate. Being a lively, prating thing, Mrs. Euftace was fond of me, and, by tarts and fruit, encouraged me to run into her parlour as often as I could. This made me well acquainted in the houfe; and as I was a remarker fo early in my life, I had an opportunity of making the following obfervations:

Orlando Euftace was a tall, thin, ftrong man, well made, and a very genteel perfon. His face was pale, and marked with the fmall-pox his features were good, and yet there was fomething fierce in his look, even when he was not displeased. He had fenfe 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 opiniated, proud, and 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 sweetness in it that was pleafing to look at. Her vivacity was

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great, and her understanding extraordinary; but she had a fatirical wit, and a vanity, which made her delight in fhewing the weakness of other minds, and the clearness of her own conception. She was too good, however, to have the leaft malice in fuch a procedure it was human weaknefs, and a defire to make her neighbours wifer. Unfortunately for her, fhe was married to a VOL. VII. 158.

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man, who, of all the men in the world, was the unfittest subject for her quick fancy to act on.

But, notwithstanding this, Euftace and Bellinda were, for the most of their time; very fond. As fhe was formed in a prodigality of nature, to fhew mankind a finished compofition, and had wit and charms enough to fire the dullest and most insensible heart, a Iman of Orlando's tafte for the fex could not be without an inflamed heart, when fo near the tranfporting object of defire. She was his delight for almost a year, the dear fupport of his life. He feemed to value her esteem, her refpect, her love; and endeavoured to merit them by the virtues which fortify love and therefore, when by his being fhort, pofitive, and unreasonable in his dictates, as he was too often wont; and on her being intemperate in the ftrong fentiments her imagination produced upon the occafion, which was too frequently the cafe; when they seemed to forget the Apostle'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 she, throwing her face into fmiles, with fome tender expreffion, prove a reconciling method at once. Till the fatal night, this always had a power to foften pain, to cafe 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 inconsistencies, 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 veracity, and inftead of reflecting on the reafon of the thing, or the right of the case, 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 beat and humour determine 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 ftriving to introduce diforders into our frame, and it is difficult indeed to preferve, in any degree, an integrity of character, and peace within ---if, in fuch a fituation, inftead of labouring to destroy all the feeds of envy, pride, ill-will, and impatience, and endeavouring to establish and maintain a due inward ceconomy 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 reafon 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

then can be expected but deficiency and deformity, degeneracy and guilty practice?

This was the cafe of Euftace and Bellinda. Paffion and ownwill were fo near and intimate to him, that he seemed to live under a deliberate refolution not to be governed by reafon. He would wink at the light he had, ftruggle 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 faculty of reafon.----This produced the following scene :

Maria (fifter to Bellinda) returned one evening with a five guinea fan fhe had bought that afternoon, and was tedious in praifing fome Indian figures that were painted in it. Mrs. Euftace, who had a tafte for pictures, faid the colours were fine, but that 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 peremp torily infifted upon it, that fhe 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 judgement of Bellinda, upon all occasions, 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 refpect to fuch things, but fpoke with too much warmth against the defpotic tempers of felf-fufficient husbands,

To reverence and obey (fhe faid) was not required by any obligation, when men were unreasonable, and paid no regard to a wife's domeftic and perfonal felicity; nor would fhe give up her understanding to his weak determination, fince custom 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 to be the cafe in matrimony, and women were to fuffer under conjugal vexations, as fhe did, by his fenfelefs arguments every day, they had better bear the reproach and folitude of antiquated virginity, and be treated as the refufe of the world, in the character of old maids.

This too lively, though juft fpeech, 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 I stayed, 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 smiled, cried, afked pardon; but 'twas all in vain, Every charm had loft its power, and he feemed no longer man.

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