being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in distinguishing between what is wit, and what is ill-nature. Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in question, is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for those misfortunes or infirmities, which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The illnatured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings of human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged him, and, in short, sticks at nothing that may establish his character of a wit. It is no wonder, therefore, he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the fair trader. L. UPON looking over the letters of my female correspondents, I find several from women complaining of jealous husbands, and at the same time protesting their own innocence; and desiring my advice on this occasion. I shall therefore take this subject into my consideration; and the more willingly, because I find that the Marquis of Halifax, who, in his Advice to a Daughter, has instructed a wife how to behave herself towards a false, an intemperate, a choleric, a sullen, a covetous, or a silly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband. Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves. Now because our inward passions and inclinations can never make themselves visible, it is impossible for a jealous man to be thoroughly cured of his suspicions. His thoughts hang at best in a state of doubtfulness and uncertainty: and are never capable of receiving any satisfaction on the advantageous side; so that his inquiries are most successful when they discover nothing. His pleasure arises from his disappointments, and his life is spent in pursuit of a secret that destroys his happiness if he chance to find it. An ardent love is always a strong ingredient in this passion; for the same affection which stirs up the jealous man's desires, and gives the party beloved so beautiful a figure in his imagination, makes him believe she kindles the same passion in others, and appears as amiable to all beholders. And as jealousy thus arises from an extraordinary love, it is of so delicate a nature, that it scorns to take up with any thing less than an equal return of love. Not the warmest expressions of affection, the softest and most tender hypocrisy, are able to give any satisfaction, where we are not persuaded that the affection is real, and the satisfaction mutual. For the jealous man wishes himself a kind of deity to the person he loves. He would be the only pleasure of her senses, the employment of her thoughts; and is angry at every thing she admires or takes delight in besides himself. Phædra's request to his mistress, upon his leaving her for three days, is inimitably beautiful and natural: Cum milite isto presens, absens ut sies: Be with ron soldier present, as if absent: Give your whole heart, for mine's all your's, to me. The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment. A cool behav pur sets him on the rack, and is interpreted as an instance of aversion or indifference; a fond one raises his suspicions, and looks too much like dissimulation and artifice. If the person he loves be cheerful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if sad, she is certainly thinking on himself. In short, there is no word or gesture so insignificant, but it gives him new hints, feeds his suspicions, and furnishes him with fresh matters of discovery: so that if we consider the effects of his passion, one would rather think it proceeded from an inveterate hatred, than an excessive love; for certainly none can meet with more disquietude and uneasiness than a suspected wife, if we except the jealous husband. But the great unhappiness of this passion is, that it naturally tends to alienate the affection which it is so solicitous to engross; and that for these two reasons, because it lays too great a constraint on the words and actions of the suspected person, and at the same time shows you have no honourable opinion of her; both of which are strong motives to aversion. Nor is this the worst effect of jealousy; for it often draws after it a more fatal train of consequences, and makes the person you suspect guilty of the very crimes you are so much afraid of. It is very natural for such who are treated ill, and upbraided falsely, to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints, condole their sufferings, and endeavour to soothe and assuage their secret resentments. Besides, jealousy puts a woman often in mind of an ill thing that she would not otherwise, perhaps, have thought of, and fills her imagination with such an unlucky idea, as in time grows familiar, excites desire, and loses all the shame and horror which might at first attend it. Nor is it a wonder if she, who suffers wrongfully in a man's opinion of her, and has therefore nothing to forfeit in his esteem, resolves to give him reason for his suspicions, and to enjoy the pleasure of the crime, since she must undergo the ignominy. Such, probably, were the considerations that directed the wise man in his advice to husbands: 'Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom, and teach her not an evil lesson against thyself."* actions; and are ever tormenting themselves with fancies of their own raising. They generally act in a disguise themselves, and therefore mistake all outward shows and appearances for hypocrisy in others; so that I believe no men see less of the truth and reality of things, than these great refiners upon incidents, who are so wonderfully subtile and over-wise in their conceptions. Now, what these men fancy they know of women by reflection, your lewd and vicious men believe they have learned by experience. They have seen the poor husband so misled by tricks and artifices, and in the midst of his inquiries so lost and bewildered And here, among the other torments in a crooked intrigue, that they still suswhich this passion produces, we may usu-pect an under-plot in every female action; ally observe that none are greater mourners than jealous men, when the person who provoked their jealousy is taken from them. Then it is that their love breaks out furiously, and throws off all the mixtures of suspicion which choked and smothered it Defore. The beautiful parts of the cha-ings, and are too well acquainted with the racter rise uppermost in the jealous husband's memory, and upbraid him with the ill usage of so divine a creature as was once in his possession; whilst all the little imperfections, that were before so uneasy to him, wear off from his remembrance, and show themselves no more. We may see by what has been said, that jealousy takes the deepest root in men of amorous dispositions; and of these we find three kinds who are most overrun with it. The first are those who are conscious to themselves of any infirmity, whether it be weakness, old age, deformity, ignorance, or the like. These men are so well acquainted with the unamiable part of themselves, that they have not the confidence to think they are really beloved; and are so distrustful of their own merits, that all fondness towards them puts them cut of countenance, and looks like a jest upon their persons. They grow suspicious on their first looking in a glass, and are stung with jealousy at the sight of a wrinkle. A handsome fellow immediately alarms them, and every thing that looks young, or gay, turns their thoughts upon their wives. A second sort of men who are most liable to this passion, are those of cunning, wary, and distrustful tempers. It is a fault very justly found in histories composed by politicians, that they leave nothing to chance or humour, but are still for deriving every action from some plot or contrivance, for drawing up a perpetual scheme of causes and events, and preserving a constant correspondence between the camp and the council-table. And thus it happens in the affairs of love with men of too refined a thought. They put a construction on a look, and find out a design in a smile; they give new senses and significations to words and Ecclesiasticus, ix. 1. and especially where they see any resemblance in the behaviour of two persons, are apt to fancy it proceeds from the same design in both. These men therefore bear hard upon the suspected party, pursue her close through all her turnings and wind chase to be flung off by any false steps or doubles. Besides, their acquaintance and conversation has lain wholly among the vicious part of woman-kind, and therefore it is no wonder they censure all alike, and look upon the whole sex as a species of impostors. But if, notwithstanding their private experience, they can get over these prejudices, and entertain a favourable opinion of some women, yet their own loose desires will stir up new suspicions from another side, and make them believe all men subject to the same inclinations with themselves. Whether these or other motives are most predominant, we learn from the modern histories of America, as well as from our own experience in this part of the world, that jealousy is no northern passion, but rages most in those nations that lie nearest the influence of the sun. It is a misfortune for a woman to be born between the tropics; for there lie the hottest regions of jealousy, which as you come northward cools all along with the climate, till you scarce meet with any thing like it in the polar circle. Our own nation is very temperately situated in this respect; and if we meet with some few, disordered with the violence of this passion, they are not the proper growth of our country, but are many degrees nearer the sun in their constitutions than in their climate. After this frightful account of jealousy, and the persons who are most subject to it, it will be but fair to show by what means the passion may be best allayed, and those who are possessed with it set at ease. Other faults, indeed, are not under the wife's jurisdiction, and should, if possible, escape her observation; but jealousy calls upon her particularly for its cure, and deserves all her art and application in the attempt. Besides, she has this for her encourage ment, that her endeavours will be always pleasing, and that she will still find the affection of her husband rising towards her in proportion as his doubts and suspicions vanish; for, as we have seen all along, there is so great a mixture of love and jealousy as is well worth the separating. But this shall be the subject of another paper. L. No. 171.] Saturday, September 15, 1711. Credula res amor est. Orid, Met. vii. 826. HAVING in my yesterday's paper discovered the nature of jealousy, and pointed out the persons who are most subject to it, I must here apply myself to my fair correspondents, who desire to live well with a jealous husband, and to ease his mind of its unjust suspicions. The first rule I shall propose to be observed is, that you never seem to dislike 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 satire on himself out of a panegyric on another. He does not trouble himself to consider the person, but to direct the character; and is secretly pleased or confounded, as he finds more or less of himself in it. The commendation of any thing in another stirs up his jealousy, as it shows you have a value for others besides himself; but the commendation of that, which he himself wants, inflames him more, as it shows that, in some respects, you prefer others before him. Jealousy is admirably described in this view by Horace in his ode to Lydia: Quum tu, Lydia, Telephi Cervicem roseam, et cerea Telephi Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur; Certa sede manet; humor et in genas Quam lentis penitus macerer ignibus. When Telephus his youthful charms, His rosy neck and winding arms, With endless rapture you recite, And in the pleasing name delight; My heart, inflamed by jealous heats, With numberless resentments beats; From my pale cheek the colour flies, And all the man within me dies; By turns my hidden grief appears In rising sighs and falling tears, That show too well the warm desires, The silent, slow, consuming fires, Which on my inmost vitals prey, And melt my very soul away. The jealous man is not indeed angry if you dislike another; but if you find those faults, which are to be found in his own character, you discover not only your dislike of another, but of himself. In short, he is so desirous of ingrossing all your love, that he is grieved at the want of any charm which he believes has power to raise it: and if he finds by your censures on others, that he is not so agreeable in your opinion as he might be, he naturally concludes you could love him better if he had other qualifications, and that by consequence your affection does not rise so high as he thinks it ought. If therefore his temper be grave or sullen, you must not be too much pleased with a jest, or transported with any thing that is gay or diverting. If his beauty be none of the best, you must be a professed admirer of prudence, or any other quality he is master of, or at least vain enough to think he is. In the next place, you must be sure to be free and open in your conversation with him, and to let in light upon your actions, to unravel all your designs, and discover every secret, however trifling or indifferent. A jealous husband has a particular aversion to winks and whispers, and if he does not see to the bottom of every thing, will be sure to go beyond it in his fears and suspicions. He will always expect to be your chief confident, and where he finds himself kept out of a secret, will believe there is more in it than there should be. And here it is of great concern, that you preserve the character of your sincerity uniform and of a piece; for if he once finds a false gloss put upon any single action, he quickly suspects all the rest: his working imagination immediately take a false hint, and runs off with it into several remote consequences, till he has proved very ingenious in working out his own misery. If both these methods fail, the best way will be to let him see you are much cast down and afflicted for the ill opinion he entertains of you, and the disquietudes he himself suffers for your sake. There are many who take a kind of barbarous pleasure in the jealousy of those who love them, that insult over an aching heart, and triumph in their charms which are able to excite so much uneasiness: Ardeat ipsa licet, tormentis gaudet amantis. Juv. Sat. vi. 208. Though equal pains her peace of mind destroy, A lover's torments give her spiteful joy. But these often carry the humour so far, till their affected coldness and indifference quite kills all the fondness of a lover, and are then sure to meet in their turn with all the contempt and scorn that is due to so insolent a behaviour. On the contrary, it is very probable a melancholy, dejected carriage, the usual effects of injured innocence, may soften the jealous husband into pity, make him sensible of the wrong he does you, and work out of his mind all those fears and suspicions that make you both unhappy. At least it will have this good effect, that he will keep his jealousy to himself, and repine in private, either because he is sensible it is a weakness, and will therefore hide it from your knowledge, or because he will be apt to fear some ill effect it may produce in cooling your love towards him, or diverting it to another. There is still another secret that can never fail, if you can once get it believed, and which is often practised by women of greater cunning than virtue. This is to change sides for a while with the jealous man, and to turn his own passion upon himself; to take some occasion of growing jealous of him, and to follow the example he himself hath set you. This counterfeit jealousy will bring him a great deal of pleasure, if he thinks it real; for he knows experimentally how much love goes along with this passion, and will besides feel something like the satisfaction of revenge, in seeing you undergo all his own tortures. But this, indeed, is an artifice so difficult, and at the same time so disingenuous, that it ought never to be put in practice but by such as have skill enough to cover the deceit, and innocence to render it excusable. I shall conclude this essay with the story of Herod and Mariamne, as I have collected it out of Josephus;* which may serve almost as an example to whatever can be said on this subject. all in flames for his Mariamne; but before their meeting, he was not a little alarmed at the report he had heard of his uncle's conversation and familiarity with her in his absence. This therefore was the first discourse he entertained her with, in which she found it no easy matter to quiet his suspicions. But at last he appeared so well satisfied of her innocence, that from reproaches and wranglings he fell to tears and embraces. Both of them wept very tenderly at their reconciliation, and Herod poured out his whole soul to her in the warmest protestations of love and constancy; when amidst all his sighs and languishings she asked him, Whether the private orders he left with his uncle Joseph were an instance of such an inflamed affection? The jealous king was immediately roused at so unexpected a question, and concluded his uncle must have been too familiar with her, before he could have discovered such a secret. In short, he put his uncle to death, and very difficultly prevailed upon himself to spare Mariamne. After this he was forced on a second journey into Egypt, when he committed Mariamne had all the charms that beauty, his lady to the care of Sohemus, with the birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, same private orders he had before given and Herod all the love that such charms his uncle, if any mischief befel himself. In are able to raise in a warm and amorous the meanwhile Mariamne so won upon Sodisposition. In the midst of this his fond- hemus by her presents and obliging conness for Mariamne, he put her brother to versation, that she drew all the secret from death, as he did her father not many years him, with which Herod had intrusted him; after. The barbarity of the action was so that after his return, when he flew to represented to Mark Antony, who imme- her with all the transports of joy and love, diately summoned Herod into Egypt, to she received him coldly with sighs and answer for the crime that was there laid to tears, and all the marks of indifference and his charge. Herod attributed the summons aversion. This reception so stirred up his to Antony's desire of Mariamne, whom indignation, that he had certainly slain her therefore before his departure, he gave into with his own hands, had not he feared he the custody of his uncle Joseph, with pri- himself should have become the greatest vate orders to put her to death, if any such sufferer by it. It was not long after this, violence was offered to himself. This Jo-when he had another violent return of love seph was much delighted with Mariamne's upon him: Mariamne was therefore sent conversation, and endeavoured with all his for to him, whom he endeavoured to soften art and rhetoric, to set out the excess of and reconcile with all possible conjugal Herod's passion for her; but when he still caresses and endearments; but she declined found her cold and incredulous, he incon- his embraces, and answered all his fondsiderately told her, as a certain instance of ness with bitter invectives for the death of her lord's affection, the private orders he her father, and her brother. This behahad left behind him, which plainly showed, viour so incensed Herod, that he very according to Joseph's interpretation, that hardly refrained from striking her; when he could neither live nor die without her. in the heat of their quarrel there came in a This barbarous instance of a wild unrea-witness suborned by some of Mariamne's sonable passion quite put out, for a time, those little remains of affection she still had for her lord. Her thoughts were so wholly taken up with the cruelty of his orders, that she could not consider the kindness that produced them, and therefore represented him in her imagination, rather under the frightful idea of a murderer than a lover. Herod was at length acquitted and dismissed by Mark Antony, when his scul was * Antiquities of the Jews, book xv. chap. 3. sect. 5, 6, 9; chap. 7. sect. 1, 2, &c. enemies, who accused her to the king of a design to poison him. Herod was now prepared to hear any thing in her prejudice, and immediately ordered her servant to be stretched upon the rack; who in the extremity of his torture confessed, that his mistress's aversion to the king arose from something Sohemus had told her; but as for any design of poisoning, he utterly disowned the least knowledge of it. This confession quickly proved fatal to Sohemus, who now lay under the same suspicions and sentence that Joseph had before him, on the like occasion. Nor would Herod rest here; but accused her with great vehemence of a de- | shape, or goodness of his understanding. I sign upon his life, and, by his authority with say the goodness of his understanding, for the judges, had her publicly condemned and executed. Herod soon after her death grew melancholy and dejected, retiring from the public administration of affairs into a solitary forest, and there abandoning himself to all the black considerations, which naturally arise from a passion made up of love, remorse, pity, and despair. He used to rave for his Mariamne, and to call upon her in his distracted fits; and in all probability would soon have followed her, had not his thoughts been seasonably called off from so sad an object by public storms, which at that time very nearly threatened L. him. As knowledge, without justice, ought to be called cun ning, rather than wisdom; so a mind prepared to meet danger, if excited by its own eagerness, and not the public good, deserves the name of audacity, rather than that of fortitude. it is no less common to see men of sense commence coxcombs, than beautiful women become immodest. When this happens in either, the favour we are naturally inclined to give to the good qualities they have from nature should abate in proportion. But however just it is to measure the value of men by the application of their talents, and not by the eminence of those qualities, abstracted from their use: I say, however just such a way of judging is, in all ages as well as this, the contrary has prevailed upon the generality of mankind. How many lewd devices have been preserved from one age to another, which had perished as soon as they were made, if painters and sculptors had been esteemed as much for the purpose, as the execution of their designs? Modest and well-governed imaginations have by this means lost the representation of ten thousand charming portraitures, filled with images of innate truth, generous zeal, courageous faith, and tender humanity; instead of which, satyrs, furies, and monsters, are recommended by those arts to a shameful eternity. The unjust application of laudable talents is tolerated in the general opinion of men, THERE can be no greater injury to human not only in such cases as are here mentionsociety than that good talents among mened, but also in matters which concern ordishould be held honourable to those who are endowed with them, without any regard how they are applied. The gifts of nature and accomplishments of art are valuable but as they are exerted in the interests of virtue, or governed by the rules of honour. We ought to abstract our minds from the observation of any excellence in those we converse with, till we have taken some notice or received some good information of the disposition of their minds; otherwise the beauty of their persons, or the charms of their wit, may make us fond of those whom our reason and judgment will tell us we ought to abhor. nary life. If a lawyer were to be esteemed only as he uses his parts in contending for justice, and were immediately despicable when he appeared in a cause which he could not but know was an unjust one, how honourable would his character be? And how ho nourable is it in such among us, who follow the profession no otherwise, than as labouring to protect the injured, to subdue the oppressor, to imprison the careless debtor, and do right to the painful artificer? But many of this excellent character are overlooked by the greater number; who affect covering a weak place in a client's title, diverting the course of an inquiry, or finding a skilful refuge to palliate a falsehood; yet it is still called eloquence in the latter, though thus unjustly employed: but resolution in an assassin is according to reason quite as laudable as knowledge and wisdom exercised in the defence of an ill cause. When we suffer ourselves to be thus carried away by mere beauty, or mere wit, Omniamante, with all her vice, will bear away as much of our good-will as the most innocent virgin, or discreet matron; and there cannot be a more abject slavery in this world, than to dote upon what we think we ought to condemn. Yet this must Were the intention steadfastly considerbe our condition in all the parts of life, if ed, as the measure of approbation, all falsewe suffer curselves to approve any thing hood would soon be out of countenance; and but what tends to the promotion of what is an address in imposing upon mankind, would good and honourable. If we would take be as contemptible in one state of life as antrue pains with ourselves to consider all other. A couple of courtiers making prothings by the light of reason and justice, fessions of esteem, would make the same though a man were in the height of youth figure after breach of promise, as two and amorous inclinations, he would lock, knights of the post convicted of perjury. upon a coquette with the same contempt, or, But conversation is fallen so low in point of indifference, as he would upon a coxcomb. The wanton carriage in a woman would disappoint her of the admiration which she aims at; and the vain dress or discourse of A man would destroy the comeliness of his morality, that, as they say in a bargain, let the buyer look to it;' so in friendship he is the man in danger who is most apt to believe. He is the more likely to suffer in the commerce, who begins with the |