Nay, Paradise,--till my frail Eve
Our bliss was tempted to destroy--
Deceived, and fated to deceive.

"But I deserved;--for all that time
When I was loved, admired, caressed,
There was within each secret crime,
Unfelt, uncancelled, unconfessed:
I never then my God addressed,
In grateful praise or humble prayer;
And if His Word was not my jest--
(Dread thought!) it never was my care."

The misfortunes of the unhappy man proceed apace, and blow follows blow.
He is unthankful for his blessings, and Heaven's vengeance descends on
him. His wife proves faithless, and he kills her betrayer, once his
trusted friend. The wretched woman pines and dies, and the two children
take some infectious disease and quickly follow. The sufferer turns to
his wealth and his ambitions to drug his memory. But "walking in pride,"
he is to be still further "abased." The "Watcher and the Holy One" that
visited Nebuchadnezzar come to Sir Eustace in vision and pronounce his
fate:

"Full be his cup, with evil fraught--
Demons his guides, and death his doom."

Two fiends of darkness are told off to tempt him. One, presumably the
Spirit of Gambling, robs him of his wealth, while the Spirit of Mania
takes from him his reason, and drags him through a hell of horriblest
imaginings. And it is at this point that what has been called the