LIFE OF MYTTON. 231 



eye that the nature of man was first polished and 

 refined.* 



The service done to the Hving only commences 

 here. By pointing out the fatal rock on which Mr. 

 Mytton struck, a beacon is erected which might warn 

 others, if they would see it, who are entering now on 

 the vog:acre of life ; and the vicissitudes of his latter 

 days, and the melancholy circumstances of his death, 

 are fearful lessons to the present possessors of what he 

 once was master of, namely, all that -might make life 

 desirable and happy. That memorable position then, 

 that good is often the consequence of evil, is once 

 more illustrated ; and, as the poet says, it often hap- 

 pens, when they little dream of it, that 



" The sons of men may owe 

 The fruits of bhss to bursting clouds of woe." 



Let me indulge in a tew more moral reflections, as 

 such themes do not often present themselves to my 

 pen. Man has been represented the miracle of nature, 



* I one day told Mr. Mytton, in jest, I should write a history of his 

 life, if I survived him. " I shall write it myself," he replied, " like 

 Antoninus's Kaff ia-vrovS" In a frolic, I did write his epitnph some sears 

 since at Halston, and it was, I am sorry to say, prophetic. It ran 

 thus : — 



