LIFE OF MYTTON. 143 



upon her portrait at Halston, and speak of her 

 afterwards, could doubt the truth of what I have 

 asserted ? And yet, could they both rise from their 

 graves, and were he to meet her again in all her 

 beauty, and with all her charms, as he had met her 

 before on their bridal day, I would not answer for 

 many years of domestic happiness, even with the 

 experience of the past to boot. " What is passion," 

 says my Uncle Toby, " but a wild beast ? " and un- 

 less restrained by reason, or subdued by temperance, 

 it is as furious and violent as the brute beast himself. 

 We may throw a gem to a cock or a pearl to a 

 swine, but each would be better pleased with much 

 humbler fare sought for and selected to their wild 

 taste and pleasure ; and I need not apply the moral 

 here. It has been shown beyond a doubt, that it was 

 not in the power of woman — no, nor in the power of 

 himself — to have made John Mytton a good hus- 

 band ; indeed he ought not to have entered into the 

 marriage state at all. 



We must, then, still proceed in the catechetical 

 mood. How could any woman venture on Mr. 

 Mytton as a husband after the publicit)' given to the 

 history of his proceedings towards his first wife ? I 

 answer, In the first place, many of the evil reports In 



