fimulation and artifice. If the perfon he loves be chearful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if fad, he is certainly thinking on himself. In fhort, there is no word or gefture fo infignificant, but it gives him new hints, feeds his fufpicions, and furnishes him with fresh matters of difcovery: So that if we confider the effects of this paffion, one would rather think it proceeded from an inveterate hatred, than an exceffive love; for certainly none can meet with more difquietude and uncafinefs than a fufpected wife, if we except the jealous husband.

But the great unhappiness of this paffion is, that it naturally tends to alienate the affection which it is fo folicitous to ingrofs; and that for these two reafons, because it lays too great a constraint on the words and actions of the fufpected perfon, and at the fame time fhews you have no honourable opinion of her; both of which are ftrong motives to averfion.

Nor is this the worst effect of jealousy; for it often draws after it a more fatal train of confequences, and makes the perfon you fufpect guilty of the very crines you are fo much afraid of. It is very natural for fuch who are treated ill and upbraided falfely, to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints, condole their fufferings, and endeavour to footh and affuage their fecret refentments. Besides, jealousy puts a woman often in mind of an ill thing that the would not otherwife perhaps have thought of, and fills her imagination with such an unlucky idea, as in time grows familiar, excites defire, and lofes all the fhame and horror which might at firft attend it. Nor is it a wonder if he who fuffers wrongfully in a man's opinion of her, and has therefore nothing to forfeit in his esteem, resolves to give him reafon for his fufpicions, and to enjoy the pleasure of the crime, fince the muft undergo the ignominy. Such probably were the confiderations that directed the wife man in his advice to hufbands; Be not jealous over the wife of thy bofom, and teach her not an evil-leffon against thyfelf.

Ecclus.

And here, among the other torments which this

paflion

paffion produces, we may ufually obferve that none are greater mourners than jealous men, when the perfon who provoked their jealoufy is taken from them. Then it is that their love breaks out furioufly, and throws off all the mixtures of fufpicion which choaked and fimothered it before. The beautiful parts of the character rife uppermoft in the jealous husband's memory, and upbraid him with the ill ufage of fo divine a creature as was once in his poffeffion; whilft all the little imperfections, that were before fo uneafy to him, wear off from his remembrance, and fhew themfelves no more.

We may fee by what has been faid, that jealousy takes the deepest root in men of amorous difpofitions; and of thefe we may find three kinds who are most overrun with it.

The firft are thofe who are confcious to themselves of any infirmity, whether it be weakness, old age, deformity, ignorance, or the like. Thefe men are fo well acquainted with the unamiable part of themselves, that they have not the confidence to think they are really beloved; and are fo distrustful of their own merits, that all fondnefs towards them puts them out of countenance, and looks like a jest upon their perfons. They grow fufpicious on their first looking in a glafs, 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 moft liable to this paffion, arc thofe of cunning, wary, and distrustful tempers. It is a fault very justly found in hiftories compofed by politicians, that they leave nothing to chance or humour, but are ftill for deriving every action from fome plot or contrivance, for drawing up a perpetual fcheme of caufes 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 smile; they give new fenfes

and

and fignifications to words and actions; and are ever tormenting themselves with fancies of their own raising. 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 thefe men fancy they know of women by reflection, your lewd and vicious men believe they have learned by experience. They have feen 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 fufpe&t an under-plot in every female action; and especially when they fee any refemblance 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 close through all her turning 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 women-kind, 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 thefe 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 thefe 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 most in thofe nations that lie nearest the influence of the fun. It is a misfortune for a woman to be born between the tropicks; for there lie the hottest 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 fi

tuated

tuated in this respect; and if we meet with some few disordered 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 those who are poffeffed with it fet at cafe. Other faults indeed are not under the wife's jurifdiction, and should, if poffible, efcape her obfervation; but jealousy calls upon her particularly for it's cure, and deferves all her art and application in the attempt: Befides, fhe has this for her encouragement, that her endeavours will be always pleafing, and that she will still find the affection of her hufband 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 subject of another paper.

No. CLXXI. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBR 15.

Credula res amor eft

The man, who loves, is cafy of belief.

L

OVID.

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

The first rule I fhall propofe to be observed 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 panegyrick on another. He does not trouble himself to confider the perfon, but to direct the character; and is fecretly

fecretly pleafed or confounded as he finds more or lefs of himfelf in it. The commendation of any thing in another ftirs up his jealoufy, 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 described in this view by Horace in his ode to Lydia.

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 penitùs macerer ignibus.

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 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 I could love him better if he had

other