n Neville were
alive, he would purchase peace of conscience by relinquishing his
usurped possessions; but no sooner was he certified of that fact, and
beheld in Eustace the noble heir he had so basely injured, than his base
spirit shrunk into its narrow cell, and at that moment he would have
given worlds to have had the father and son cut off by any hand but his
own. Equally affected by the fear of death and of adversity, he yielded
Eustace to a fate which some faint remains of humanity made him deplore,
while a consciousness that this slaughter tended to confirm his own
title, reminded him that, by reaping the advantage of a cruel unjust
sentence which he had power to remit, he was virtually his murderer.
Such he knew the world would esteem him, if ever the story transpired;
and could it be long concealed? His influence with the ruling powers was
evidently on the wane; the star, which was now Lord of the ascendant,
shed on him a malign influence. Abjured by those whom he had served,
hated by the royalists, and despised by all parties; could a more
pitiable object be found, than a timorous, susceptible, falling villain;
conscious of guilt, aware of danger, convinced of the necessity of
repentance; but too much attached to temporal enjoyments to set about
it.

Lord Bellingham's distresses were not alleviated by domestic comfort. I
have before observed, that his Lady had embraced the party of Cromwell,
and had taken her religious creed from the fanatics, as best calculated
to compose her fears, and leave her conduct under the mis-rule of her
irregular passions. She had long hated and despised her husband, on whom
she threw the whole blame of the crimes she had excited him to commit,
at the same time that she took pains to stifle in him all the better
feelings of remorse, by telling him that it was his want of faith, which
excluded him from reaping the benefit of the promise, that the saints
should inherit the earth. When she spoke of worldly riches, of honour,
or of pleasure, she called them, "dust in the balance," carnal delights,
and Satan's bird-lime, which kept the soul from flying to heaven; yet no
miser ever clung to his gold with more tenacity than she to every
earthly good, that could in any wise contribute to her own advantage.
From a vain dissipated coquette, proud of making conquests, and wedded
to a life of frivolity, she was changed to a rapturous enthusiast,
certain of divine favour upon grounds equally inco