The sentence passed on him was, to be hanged in chains, which was accordingly executed in a few days; though Natura, pitying his case, in consideration of the greatness of the temptation, laboured for a mitigation of his doom. — He never saw the unfortunate Maria afterwards, but heard she was in a condition little different from madness, which making her parents think it improper she should return to England, they conveyed her to Liege, where they placed her as a pensioner in the convent of English nuns, there to remain till time and reflection should make a change in her, fit to appear again in the world; which proceeding in them shewed, that whatever aversion some people have to this, or that form of religion, they can countenance, nay, pretend to approve it, when it happens to prove for their convenience to do so.
Natura was now intirely cured of his passion, but could not avoid feeling a very tender commiseration for her, who had been the unhappy object of it; he found also, on meditating on every passage of this adventure, that she was infinitely less to blame, in regard to him, than her parents had been; and that what he had accused, as cruel in her, was much more kind than the favour they had pretended for him. — When he reflected on the gulph of misery he had so narrowly escaped, he was filled with the most grateful sentiments to that Providence which had protected him; and also made sensible, that what we often pray for, as the greatest of blessings, would, if obtained, prove the severest curse: — a reflection highly necessary for all who desire any thing with too much ardency.
CHAP. V.
Shews that there is no one human advantage to which all others should be sacrificed: — the force of ambition, and the folly of suffering it to gain too great an ascendant over us; — public grandeur little capable of atoning for private discontent; among which jealousy, whether of love or honour, is the most tormenting.
The desire of being well settled in the world is both natural and laudable; but then great care ought to be taken to moderate this passion, in order to prevent it from engrossing the mind too much; for it is the nature of ambition, not only to stop at nothing that tends to its gratification, but also to be ever craving new acquisitions, ever unsatisfied with the former. — One favourite point is no sooner gained, than another appears in view, and is pursued with the same eagerness: — what we once thought the summum bonum of our happiness, seems nothing when we have attained to the possession of it, while that which is unaccomplished, fires us with impatience, and robs us of every enjoyment we might take in life.
Natura having now been absent two years, thought the idle rumours concerning him, as to his principles in party-matters, would be pretty much silenced, so began to think of returning to England; he was the more encouraged to do so, as he found by his letters, that those in the ministry, who had appeared with most virulence against him, had been removed themselves, and that a considerable change in public affairs had happened. Accordingly, he set forward with all the expedition he could, feeling not the least regret for leaving a country he had never liked, nor where he had ever enjoyed any real satisfaction, and had been so near being plunged into the worst of misfortunes, that of an unhappy marriage: — no ill accident intervening, he arrived in England, and proceeded directly to London, where he was received with an infinity of joy by his father and sister, who happened at that time to come to town with her spouse, in order to place a young son they had at Westminster school.
The better genius of Natura now took its turn, and prevailed over his ill one: the person whose turbulent zeal had occasioned his late misfortune, had since, being detected in some mal practice in other affairs, been cashiered from an office he held under the government, and was in the utmost disgrace himself: every body was now assured, that Natura had done no more than what became any man of spirit and honour; and those who before had condemned, now applauded his behaviour: in fine, every thing happened according to his wishes, and, to crown his happiness, he married about ten months after his arrival, a young beautiful lady, of his father's recommendation, and who had indeed all the qualifications that can render the conjugal state desirable.
The promotion of a member of parliament to the house of peers for that county in which their estate lay, happening soon after, he stood for the vacant seat, and easily obtained it: — nothing now seemed wanting to compleat his perfect happiness, yet so restless is the heart of man, that gaining much, it yet craves for more; Natura had always a great passion for the court, meerly because it was a court, and gave an air of dignity to all belonging to it; he longed to make one among the shining throng; he was continually solliciting it, with an anxiety which deprived him of any true enjoyment of the blessings of his life; nor could all the arguments his father used to convince him of the vanity of his desires, nor the soft society of a most endearing and accomplished wife, render him easy under the many disappointments he received in the prosecution of this favourite aim.
The death of his father soon after, however, filled his bosom with emotions which he had never felt before in any painful degree; he was for some time scarce able to support the thoughts of having lost so tender and affectionate a parent: but as nothing is so soon forgot as death, especially when alleviated by the enjoyment of a greater affluence of fortune, his grief wore off by pretty swift degrees, and he was beginning to renew his pursuits after preferment, with the same assiduity and ardency as ever, when his wife died in bringing into the world a son. This second subject of sorrow struck indeed much more to his heart than the former had done, as he now wanted that comforter he had found in her. — All the consolation he had was in that little pledge of their mutual affection she had left behind; and it was for the sake of that dear boy, at least he imagined it so, that his ambition of making a great figure in the world again, revived in him, if possible, with greater energy than ever.
As he was now in possession of a very fine estate, had an agreeable person, rendered yet more so by all the advantages of education and travel, and not quite six-and-thirty, when he became a widower, his year of mourning was scarce expired, before all his friends and acquaintance began to talk to him of another wife, and few days past without proposals of that nature being made; but either the memory of the former amiable partner of his bed, or the experience he had in his own family of the ill effects that second marriages sometimes produce, made him deaf, for a long time, to any discourses on that head, though urged by those who, in other matters, had the greatest ascendant over him.