LIFE OF MYTTON. 137 



extenuation have I to offer ? I answer, as regards his 

 second lady, none, save madness. His first and him- 

 self were not well assorted. She had been nursed on 

 the lap of refinement and fashion, to which her be- 

 trothed was a stranger, and was, by consequence, ill 

 calculated to be the wife of a rough country squire, 

 who had never been at Almack's in his life, and who 

 had something like a sovereign contempt for all such 

 exclusive associations. Nor was this all ; and should 

 any young female's eye rest for a moment on this 

 page, let it well observe, that it may well mark, one 

 rock on which thousands of her sex have split, and 

 which she to whom I am alluding did not steer clear 

 of. The first Jllrs. Myttoii condncted herself with 

 coldjiess to her husband's old friends and companions, 

 the sons of the native gentry of his neighbourhood, in 

 every respect her equal. To a man of Mytton's tem- 

 perament, to whom an old friend was " as the core 

 of the heart, or the apple of his eye," this could not 

 have been without its effect ; and on one occasion is 



Not even a race-ball would he let them be present at for some years of 

 his life ! To what motive but jealousy, or what is worse, suspicion^ 

 could such conduct be attributed ? In justice to the deceased husband, 

 however, I must state that the health of the first Mrs. Mytton was very 

 delicate when she was married, which may account for her premature 

 death. 



