LIFE OF MYTTON. 141 



prospect of happiness from this union, and for some 

 years indeed it appeared to be realised ; but whether 

 it was that he once again nursed a vulture to feed on 

 his own heart, or whether it was not in his nature 

 to live comfortably for any length of time with a 

 woman, however suited to his taste, and however dear 

 to his heart, is a question not to be resolved by man. 

 He has, certainly, been exhibited as a pattern of 

 ruffianism in his conduct towards this amiable lady ; 

 and as some detail of it has already been before the 

 public, a repetition would be useless, as well as painful 

 to the humanity of my readers. But here comes the 

 paradox. He loved this woman to distraction ; he 

 would have given the apple of his eye for her at any 

 time ; he would have risked twenty lives to have 

 gotten her back again, and obtained her forgiveness ; 

 he raved about her in his madness ; and sent her his 

 dying benediction ! Were those brutal deeds, then, 

 the deeds of the kind-hearted John Mytton — kind to 

 every living soul but the woman whom he loved to 

 distraction ? Oh, no ; they were the deeds of a man 

 visited by the hand of the Almighty, afflicted with a 

 distempered brain, a monomaniac beyond all doubl. 

 Could he then, like Sylla, have got an act of oblivion 

 passed in his favour for this sad stain on his other- 



