Page:History of Sir William Wallace (2).pdf/20

                          20                   EARLY LOVE.

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“ New hopes may bloom—new days may come,

With milder, calmer beams

But there's nothing half so sweet in iife

E A R L Y L O V E.

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Never, perhaps, were the vivifying and sti- mulating effects of happy love more strikingly displayed than in the person of Eustace Bentinck. At an early age death had broke up all the tender and endearing relationships, whose society and sympathy constitute the first blessings of life; and in his twenty-first year though he was rich in the gifts of for- tune and the luxuries of elevated rank, he was a bankrupt in hope and domestic felicity, and destitute of those treasures which the wealth of kingdoms could not replace. He dragged on' an irksome and isolated exist- ence— a prey to the most gloomy recollec- tions—a burthen to himself, and a source of anxious uneasiness to those around him. A