meet in their turn with all the contempt and fcorn 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 least 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 jealoufy will bring him a great deal of pleafure, 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 pracice, but by fuch as have kill 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 Josephus; which may ferve almoft as an example to whatever can be faid on this fubject. Mariamne 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 warm and amorous difpofition. In the midft of this his fondnefs fondness 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 uncle Jofeph, with private orders to put her to death, if any fuch violence was offered to himself. This Jofeph was much delighted with Mariamne's converfation, and endeavoured, with all his art and rhetorick, to fet out the excefs of Herod's paffion for her; but when he ftill found her cold and incredulous, he inconfiderately told her, as a certain inftance of her Lord's affection, the private orders he had left behind him, which plainly fhewed, according to Jofeph's interpretation, that he could neither live nor die without her. This barbarous inftance of a wild unreasonable paffion quite put out, for a time, thofe little remains of affection The ftill had for her Lord: Her thoughts were fo wholly taken up with the cruelty of his orders, that fhe could not confider the kindness that produced them, and therefore reprefented him in her imagination, rather under the frightful idea of a murderer than a lover. Herod was at length acquitted and difmiffed by Mark Antony, when his foul was 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 converfation and familiarity with her in his abfence. This therefore was the first discourse he entertained her with, in which the found it no eafy matter to quiet his fufpicions. But at laft he appeared fo well fatisfied 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 foul to her in the warmeft proteftations o VOL. III. B lov love and conftancy; when amidst all his fighs and languifhingsfhe asked him, whether the private or ders he left with his uncle Jofeph were an inftance of fuch an inflamed affection. The jealous King was immediately roufed at fo unexpected a queftion, and concluded his uncle must have been too familiar with her, before he would have discovered fuch a fecret. In fhort, he put his uncle to death, and very difficultly prevailed upon himself to fpare Mariamne. After this he was forced on a fecond journey into Egypt, when he committed his Lady to the care of Sobemus, with the fame private orders he had before given his uncle, if any mifchief befel himfelf. In the mean while Mariamne fo wone upon Schemus by her prefents and obliging converfation, that she drew all the fecret from him, with which Herod had intrufted him; fo that after his return, when he flew to her with all the tranfports of joy and love, the received him coldly with fighs and tears, and all the marks of indifference and averfion. This reception fo ftirred up his indignation, that he had certainly flain her with his own hands, had not he feared he himself thould have become the greater fufferer by it. It was not long after this, when he had another violent return of love upon him: Mariamne was therefore fent for to him, whom he endeavoured to soften and reconcile with all poflible conjugal careffes and endearments; but the declined his embraces, and anfwered all his fondnefs with bitter invectives for the death of her father and her brother. This behaviour fo infenfed Herod, that he very hardly refrained from ftriking her; when in the heat of their quarrel there came in a witness, fuborned by fome of Mariamne's enemies, who accufed her to the King of a defign to poifon him. Herod was now prepared to hear any thing in her prejudice, and immediately ordered her fervant to be ftretched upon the rack; who in the extremity of his tortures confefed, that his miftrefs's mistress's averfion to the King arofe from fomething Sohemus had told her; but as for any defign of poifoning, he utterly difowned the leaft knowledge of it. This confeffion quickly proved fatal to Sohemus, who now lay under the fame fufpicions and fentence that Jofeph had before him on the like occafion. Nor would Herod rest here; but accused her with great vehemence of a defign. upon his life, and by his authority with the judges had her publickly condemned and executed. Herod foon after her death grew melancholy and dejected, retiring from the publick adminiftration of affairs into a folitary foreft, and there abandoning himself to all the black confiderations, which naturally arise from a paffion made up of love, remorfe, pity and difpair. He ufed to rave for his Mariamne, and to call upon her in his diftracted fits; and in all probability would foon have followed her, had not his thoughts been feasonably called off from fo fad an object by publick ftorms, which at that time very nearly treatened him. No 172. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. L Non folum fcientia, quæ eft remota a juftitia, calliditas potius quam fapientia eft appellanda; verum etiam animui paratus ad periculum, fi fua cupiditate, non utilitate communi, impellitur, audacia. potius nomen habeat, quam fortitudinis PLATO apud TULL. As knowledge, without justice, ought to be called cunning, rather than wisdom; fo a mind prepared to meet danger, if excited by its own eagerness, and not the publick good, deferves the name of audacity, rather than of courage. THE be be held honourable to thofe 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 interefts of virtue, or governed by the rules of honour. We ought to abstract our minds from the observation of an excellence in thofe we converfe with, until we have taken fome notice, or received fome good information of the difpofition of their minds; otherwife the beauty of their perfons, or the charms of their wit, may make us fond of those whom our reafon and judgment will tell us we ought to abhor. When we fuffer ourfelves 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 difcreet matron; and there cannot be a more abject flavery in this world, than to dote upon what we think we ought to condemn: Yet this must be our condition in all the parts of life, if we fuffer ourselves to approve any thing but what tends to the promotion of what is good and honourable. If we would take true pains with ourselves to confider all things by the light of reafon and juftice, though a man were in the height of youth and amorous inclinations, he would look upon a coquette with the fame contempt or indifference as he would upon a coxcomb: The wanton carriage in a woman would difappoint her of the admiration which the aims at; and the vain drefs or difcourfe of a man would destroy the comeliness of his fhape, or goodness of his understanding. I fay the goodness of his underftanding, for it is no lefs common to fee men of fenfe commence coxcombs, than beautiful women become immodeft. When this happens in either, the favour we are naturally inclined to give to the good qualities they have from nature fhould abate in proportion. But however juft it is to measure the value of men by the application of their talents, and |