This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune,
(often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of our disasters,
the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity--fools
by heavenly compulsion-knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical pre-
dominance-drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience
of planetary influence.
SHAKESPEARE.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

A. K. NEWMAN AND CO. LEADENHALL-STREET.

1821.

THE FATALISTS.

CHAPTER I.

That it should come to this!

But two months dead!

SHAKESPEARE.

A beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourned longer.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

Ibid.

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to the world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such business as the bitter day

Would quake to look on.

Ibid.

THE few female visitants that appeared at the castle, with lady Courteney's love of prayer and meditation, gave Plunket

frequent opportunities of passing great part of the evenings alone with Geraldine, while sir Richard entertained his guests at table. These precious moments were occasionally given to literary discussions, or sage precepts of wisdom; but in which our Mentor, more disposed for admiration than instruction-for encomium than reproof, had to sustain a restrained part. Whenever this part, as it frequently happened, became too difficult to support, and that our hero's overcharged heart felt ready to escape his lips, he would fly from the tender confession his feelings were urging him to pour forth, to some solitary walk, of which little Arthur would be the sole companion; or, to disguise his softened thoughts, have recourse to music, in which Geraldine (who possessed a fine ear, and whose voice combined softness and melody) was a great proficient.

Thus forced to maintain a continual conflict between love and honour, Plunket felt his burning heart exhausted with the painful