e tongue of
Monthault will corrode the fame of Eustace, either in censuring or
commending him. Do not imagine there is any change in me, or that I
mistook the nature of my own feelings. Whether Eustace deserves reproach
or renown, my heart will never own another possessor. It is either
wedded to his deserts, or so estranged by his faults, that love may as
well light his fire on a monumental tablet as make me again admire in
man, that fair semblance of generous integrity, by which Eustace won me
to select him as the partner of my future life. Him I shall ever love,
or ever mourn. But were he proved guilty of every base crime laid to his
charge, this extortioner, this debauchee, this refractory soldier, nay,
even this traitor, must not be placed by the side of Monthault, unless
it be right to compare the guilt of frail man with the impious
desperation of Satan. My greatest grief and torment proceed from a fact
which I cannot dispute: true, as you say, Eustace selected Monthault for
his constant associate and particular friend."

These remarks of Constance will disprove the rumour which had reached
the ears of her fugitive lover, and prove that Monthault did not succeed
in one of the designs which brought him to Oxford; with regard to the
other, his intended services to the Parliament during the siege were
frustrated by an order extorted from the captive King, requiring that
his garrisons should be immediately surrendered to the ruling party.
Oxford therefore admitted a detachment of the rebel army, but for some
time a spirit of moderation was visible in the treatment bestowed on
this honourable asylum of loyalty and learning. The covenant and other
oaths were indeed sent down, but as they were not enforced, the
conscientious possessors of ecclesiastical and collegiate situations
were not ejected for contumacy. The captivity of the King imposed the
most scrupulous moderation and quiet submission on all his adherents,
and many persons hoped, from this apparent calm, that the national
wounds would speedily be healed.

But the suspended fury of two powerful contending parties, concentrating
their terrors, and perfecting their deep designs to crush each other
before they entirely annihilate a fallen foe, bears no more resemblance
to the wise lenity of a regular government towards the refractory
subjects it has subdued, than the fearful stillness which is the
precursor of a thunder-storm does to the serene tranquillity of a
s