them puts them out of countenance, and looks like a jeft upon their perfons. They grow fufpicious on their first looking in a gläfs, and are ftung with jealoufy at the fight of a wrinkle. A handfome. fellow immediately alarms them, and every thing that looks young or gay turns their thoughts upon. their wives..

A fecond fort of men, who are most liable to this paffion, are thofe of cunning, wary, and diftrustful tempers. It is a fault very juftly found in hiftories compofed by politicians, that they leave nothing to chance or humour, but are ftill for deriving every action from fome plot and contrivance, for drawing up a perpetual scheme of causes and events, and preferving a conftant correfpondence 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 conftruction on a look, and find out a defign in a fmile; they give new fenfes and fignifications to words and actions; and are ever tormenting themselves with fan cies of their own raifing. They generally act in a disguise themselves, and therefore mistake 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 overwife in their conceptions.

Now what thefe 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 fo mifled by tricks and artifices, and in the midst of his inquiries fo loft and bewildered in a crooked intrigue, that they ftill fufpect an underplot in every female action; and efpecially where they fee any resemblance in the behaviour of two perfons, are apt to fancy it proceeds from the fame defign in both. Thefe men therefore bear hard upon the fufpected party, purfue her clofe through

through all her turnings and windings, and are too well acquainted with the chace, to be ffung off by any falfe steps 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 stir up new fufpicions from another fide, and make them believe all men fubject to the fame inclinations with themfelves.

Whether thefe other motives are most predominant, we learn from the modern hiftories of Ame rica, 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 neareft the influence of the fun. It is a misfortune for a woman to be born between the tropics; for there lie the hoteft regions of jealousy, 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 con ftitutions 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 best allayed, and those who are poffeffed with it fet at eafe. Other faults indeed are not under the wife's jurifdiction, and fhould, if poffible, escape her obfervation; but jealoufy calls upon her particularly for its cure, and deferves all her art and application in the attempt: Befides, fhe has this for her encou ragement,that her endeavours will be always pleating,

and

and that she will still 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.

No 171. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15.

L

Credula res amor eft- OVID. Met. vii. ver. 826,
The man, who loves, is eafy of belief.

HAVING in my yesterday's paper difcovered the nature of jealousy, and pointed out the perfons who are moft fubject to it, I muft here apply myself to my fair correfpondents, who defire to live well with a jealous husband, and to eafe his mind of its unjuft fufpicions.

The first rule I fhall propofe to be obferved is, that you never feem to diflike in another what the jealous man is himfelf 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 panegyrick on another. He does not trouble himself to confider the perfon, but to direct the character; 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 jealoufy, as it fhews you have a value for others befides himfelf; but the commendation of that, which he himfelf wants, inflames him more, as it fhews that in some respects. you prefer others before him. Jealoufy is admirably defcribed in this view by Horace in his Ode to Lydia.

Quam

Quam tu, Lydia, Telephi

Cervicem rofeam, et cerea Telephi
Laudas brachia, va meum,

Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur :
Tunc nec mens mihi, nec color
Certâ fede manet; humor et in genas
Furtim labitur, arguens

Quàm lentis penitùs macerer ignibus.

Od. xiii. lib. r..

When Telephus his youthful charms,
His rofy neck and winding arms,
With endless rapture you recite,
And in the pleasing 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 inmost vitals prey,
And melt my very foul away..

The jealous man is not indeed* angry if you dif like another; but if you find thofe faults which are to be found in his own character, you discover 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 raise 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 affec tion does not rise so high as he thinks it ought. If 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 and diverting. If his beauty

*be

be none of the beft, 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 the next place, you must be fure to be free and open in your converfation with him, and to let in light upon your actions, to unravel all your defigns, and discover 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 preserve 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 several 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 cast 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, that infult over an aching heart, and triumph in their charms which are able to excite so much uneafinefs.

Ardeat ipfa licet, tormentis gaudet amantis.

Juv. Sat. vi. ver. 208.

Though equal pains her peace of mind destroy, A lover's torments give her fpiteful joy.

But thefe often carry the humour fo far, antil their affected coldness and indifference quite kills all the fondness a of lover, and are then fure to

meet