their own raifing. They generally act in a disguise themselves, and therefore miftake all outward fhows and appearances for hypocrify in others; fo that I believe no men fee lefs of the truth and reality of things, than these great refiners upon incidents, who are fo wonderfully fubtle and over-wife in their conceptions.

Now what these men fancy they know of wonien by reflection, your lewd and vicious men believe they have learned by experience. They have feen the poor husband fo milled by tricks and artifices, and in the midst of his inquiries fo loft and bewildered in a crooked intrigue, that they ftill fufpect an under-plot in every female action; and efpecially when they fee any refemblance in the behaviour of two perfons, are apt to fancy it proceeds from the fame defign in both. These men therefore bear hard upon the fufpected party, purfue her close through all her turnings and windings, and are too well acquainted with the chace, to be flung off by any falfe fteps or doubles: befides, their acquaintance and converfation has lain wholly among the vicious part of womankind, and therefore it is no wonder they cenfure all alike, and look upon the whole fex as a fpecies of impoftors. But if, notwithstanding their private experience, they can get over these prejudices, and entertain a favourable opinion of fome women; yet their own loose defires will ftir up new fufpicions from another fide, and make them believe all men fubject to the fame inclinations with themselves.

Whether these or other motives are most predominant, we learn from the modern hiftories of America, as well as from our own experience in this part of the world, that jealoufy is no northern paffion, but rages moft in those nations that lie nearest the influence of the fun. It is a misfortune for a woman to be born between the tropics; for there lie the hotteft regions of jealoufy, which as you come northward cools all along with the climate, until you fcarce meet with any thing like it in the polar circle. Our own nation is very temperately fituated in this refpect; and if we meet with fome few difordered with the violence of this paffion, they are not the proper growth of our country,

but are many degrees nearer the fun in their conftitutions than in their climate.

After this frightful account of jealoufy, and the perfons who are moft fubject to it, it will be but fair to fhew by what means the paffion may be beft allayed, and thofe who are poffeffed with it fet at eafe. Other faults indeed are not under the wife's jurifdiction, and fhould, if poffible, efcape her obfervation; but jealoufy calls upon her particularly for its cure, and deferves all her art and application in the attempt: befides, the has this for her encouragement, that her endeavours! will be always pleafing, and that the will fill find the affection of her husband rifing towards her in proportion as his doubts and fufpicions vanish; for, as we have feen all along, there is fo great a mixture of love in jealoufy, as is well worth the feparating. But this fhall. be the fubject of another paper.

N° 171.

Saturday, September 15.

L.

Credula res amor est▬▬ OVID. Met. 7. ver. 8z6: The man, who loves, is eafy of belief.

HAVING in my yefterday's paper difcovered the

nature of jealoufy, and pointed out the perfons who are moft fubject to it, I muft here apply myfelf to my fair correfpondents, who defire to live well with a jealous husband, and to eafe his mind of its unjust fufpicions.

The first rule I fhall propose to be obferved is, that you never feem to diflike in another what the jealous man is himself guilty of, or to admire any thing in which he himself does not excel. "A jealous man is very quick in his applications, he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a fatire on himself out of a panegyric on another. He does not trouble himfelf to confider the person, but to direct the cha racter; and is fecretly pleafed or confounded as he finds more or lefs of himself in it. The commendation

of any thing in another ftirs up his jealousy, as it fhews you have a value for others befides himself; but the commendation of that, which he himself wants, inflames him more, as it fhews that in fome refpects you prefer others before him. Jealoufy is admirably defcribed in this view by Horace in his ode to Lydia.

1

Quum tu, Lydia, Telephi

Cervicem rofeam, & cerea Telephi
Laudas brachia, væ meum

Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur:
Tunc nec mens mihi, nec color

Certâ fede manet; humor & in genas
Furtim labitur, arguens

Quàm lentis penitus macerer ignibus. Od. 13.lib.

When Telephus his youthful charms,
His rofy neck and winding arms,
With endless rapture you recite,
And in the pleafing name delight;
My heart, inflam'd by jealous heats,
With numberless refentments beats
From my pale cheek the colour flies,
And all the man within me dies:
By turns my hidden grief appears
In rifing fighs and falling tears,...
That fhew too well the warm defires,
The filent, flow, confuming fires,
Which on my inmoft vitals prey,
And melt my very foul away.

The jealous man is not indeed angry if you diflike another but if you find thofe faults which are to be found in his own character, you difcover not only your diflike of another, but of himself. In fhort, he is fo defirous of ingroffing all your love, that he is grieved at the want of any charm, which he believes has power to raife it; and if he finds by your cenfures on others, that he is not fo agreeable in your opinion as he might be, he naturally concludes you could love him better if he had other qualifications, and that by confequence your af fection does not rife fo high as he thinks it ought. I£

therefore his temper be grave or fullen, you must not be too much pleafed with a jeft, or tranfported with any thing that is gay or diverting. If his beauty be none of the best, you must be a profeffed admirer of prudence, or any other quality he is master of, or at least vain enough to think he is.

in

In the next place, you must be fure to be free and open your converfation with him, and to let in light upon your actions, to unravel all your defigns, and difcover every fecret however trifling or indifferent. A jealous husband has a particular averfion to winks and whifpers, and if he does not fee to the bottom of every thing, will be fure to go beyond it in his fears and fufpicions. He will always expect to be your chief confident, and where he finds himself kept out of a fecret, will believe there is more in it than there fhould be. And here it is of great concern, that you preferve the character of your fincerity uniform and of a piece: for if he once finds a falfe glofs put upon any fingle action, he quickly fufpects all the reft; his working imagination immediately takes a false hint, and runs off with it into feveral remote confequences, until he has proved very ingenious in working out his own mifery.

If both these methods fail, the best way will be to let him fee you are much caft down and afflicted for the ill opinion he entertains of you, and the difquietudes he himself fuffers for your fake. There are many who take a kind of barbarous pleasure in the jealoufy of those who love them, and infust over an aking heart, and triumph in their charms which are able to excite fo much uneasinefs.

Ardeat ipfa licet, tormentis gaudet amantis.

Juv. Sat. 6. ver. 208.
Though equal pains her peace of mind deftroy,
A lover's torments give her fpiteful joy.

But thefe often carry the humour fo far, until their affected coldness and indifference quite kills all the fondness of a lover, and are then fure to meet in their turn with all the contempt and scorn that is due to fo infolent a behaviour. On the contrary, it is very probable a

melancholy, dejected carriage, the ufual effects of injured innocence, may foften the jealous husband into pity, make him fenfible of the wrong he does you, and work out of his mind all thofe fears and fufpicions that make you both unhappy. At leaft it will have this good effect, that he will keep his jealousy to himself, and repine in private, either because he is fenfible it is a weaknefs, and will therefore hide it from your knowledge, or because he will be apt to fear fome ill effect it may produce, in cooling your love towards him, or diverting it to another.

There is ftill another fecret that can never fail, if you can once get it believed, and which is often practifed by women of greater cunning than virtue. This is to change fides for a while with the jealous man, and to turn his own paffion upon himfelf; to take fome occafion of growing jealous of him, and to follow the example he himself hath fet you. This counterfeited jealousy will bring him a great deal of pleafura, if he thinks it real; for he knows experimentally how much love goes along with this paffion, and will befides feel fomething like the fatisfaction of revenge, in feeing you undergo all his own tortures. But this, indeed, is an artifice fo difficult, and at the fame time fo difingenuous, that it ought never to be put in practice but by fuch as have skill enough to cover the deceit, and innocence to render it excufable.

I fhall conclude this effay with the ftory of Herod and Mariamne, as I have collected it out of Jofephus; which may serve almost as an example to whatever can be faid on this fubject.

Marianne had all the charms that beauty, birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, and Herod all the love that fuch charms are able to raise in a warin and amorous difpofition. In the midst of this his fondnefs for Mariamne, he put her brother to death, as he did her father not many years after. The barbarity of the action was reprefented to Mark Antony, who immediately fummoned Herod into Egypt, to answer for the crime that was there laid to his charge. Herod attributed the fummons to Antony's defire of Mariamne, whom therefore, before his departure, he gave into the cuftody of his