Am but too good a judge of your paper of the 15th inftant, which is a master-piece; I mean that of jealoufy but I think it unworthy of you to speak of that torture in the breast of a man, and not to men⚫tion alfo the pangs of it in the heart of a woman. You have very judicioufly, and with the greatest penetration imaginable, confidered it as woman is the creature of whom the diffidence is raised: but not a word of a man, who is fo unmerciful as to move jealoufy in his ⚫ wife, and not care whether she is fo ́or not. It is poffible you may not believe there are fuch tyrants in the world; but alas, I can tell you of a man who is ever out of humour in his wife's company, and the pleafanteft man in the world every where elfe; the greatest: floven at home when he appears to none but his family, and moft exactly well-dreffed in all other places. * Alas, Sir, is it of course, that to deliver one's self · wholly into a man's power without poffibility of appeal to any other jurifdiction but his own reflections, is fo little an obligation to a Gentleman, that he can be offended and fall into a rage, because my heart fwells tears into my eyes when I fee him in a cloudy mood? I pretend to no fuccour, and hope for no relief but from himself; and yet he that has fenfe and justice in every thing else, never reflects, that to come home only to fleep off an intemperance, and spend all the time he is there as if it were a punishment, cannot but give the the anguish of a jealous mind. He always leaves his home as if he were going to court, and returns as if he were entering a gaol. I could add to this, that from his company and his ufual difcourfe, he does not fcruple being thought an abandoned man, as to his morals. Your own imagination will fay enough to you concerning the condition of me his wife; and I wish you would be fo good as to reprefent to him, for he is not ill-natured, and reads you much, that the moment I hear the door fhut after him, I throw myself upon my bed, ⚫ and drown the child he is fo fond of with my tears, and often frighten it with my cries; that 1 curfe my being; that I run to my glafs all over bathed in forrows, and help the utterance of my inward anguifh by beholding the gush of my own calamities as my tears fall from my eyes. This looks like an imagined picture to tell you, but indeed this is one of my paftimes. Hitherto I have only told you the general temper of my mind, but how fhall I give you an account of the distraction of it? • Could but conceive how cruel I am one moment in you my refentment, and at the enfuing minute, when I ་ place him in the condition my anger would bring him to, how compaffionate; it would give you fome notion how miferable I am, and how little I deferve it. When I remonftrate with the greatest gentleness that is poffible against unhandsome appearances, and that married perfons are under particular rules; when he is in the beft humour to receive this, I am answered only, that I expofe my own reputation and fenfe if I appear jealous. I with, good Sir, you would take this into ferious confi⚫deration, and admonish hufbands and wives what terms they ought to keep towards each other. Your thoughts on this important fubject will have the greatest reward, that which defcends on fuch as feel the forrows of the afflicted. Give me leave to fubfcribe myself, Your unfortunate, humble fervant, CELINDA.” I had it in my thoughts, before I received the letter of this lady, to confider this dreadful paffion in the mind of of a woman; and the fmart fhe feems to feel does not abate the inclination I had to recommend to husbands a more regular behaviour, than to give the most exquifite of torments to those who love them, nay whofe torment would be abated if they did not love them. It is wonderful to obferve how little is made of this inexpreffible injury, and how eafily men get into an habit of being leaft agreeable where they are moft obliged to be fo. But this fubject deferves a distinct fpeculation, and I fhall obferve for a day or two the behaviour of two or three happy pairs I am acquainted with, before I pretend to make a fyftem of conjugal morality. I defign in the first place to go a few miles out of town, and there I know where to meet one who practifes all the parts of a fine gentleman in the duty of an husband. When he was a bachelor much bufinefs made him particularly negligent in his habit; but now there is no young lover living fo exact in the care of his perfon. One who afked why he was fo long washing his mouth, and fo delicate in the choice and wearing of his linen, was anfwered, because there is a woman of merit obliged to receive me kindly, and I think it incumbent upon me to make her inclination go along with her duty. If a man would give himself leave to think, he would not be so unreasonable as to expect debauchery and innocence could live in commerce together; or hope that flesh and blood is capable of fo ftrict an allegiance, as that a fine woman must go on to improve herself until she is as good and impaffive as an angel, only to preserve a fidelity to a brute and a fatyr. The lady who defires me for her fake to end one of my papers with the following letter, I am perfuaded, thinks fuch a perfeverance very impracticable. HUSBAND, STAY more at home. I know where you vifited at feven of the clock on Thursday evening. The • colonel whom you charged me to fee no more, is in T town. • Martha Housewife.' Tuesday, N° 179 Tuesday, September 25. Centuria feniorum agitant expertia frugis: Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 341. Old age explodes all but morality: ROSCOMMON. the Mercurial and the Saturnine. The first are the gay part of my difciples, who require fpeculations of wit and humour; the others are thofe of a more folemn and fober turn, who find no pleasure but in papers of morality and found fenfe. The former call every thing that is ferious, ftupid; the latter look upon every thing as impertinent that is ludicrous. Were I always grave, one half of my readers would fall off from me: were I always merry, I fhould lofe the other. I make it therefore my endeavour to find out entertainments of both kinds, and by that means perhaps confult the good of both, more than I should do, did I always write to the particular tafte of either. As they neither of them know what I proceed upon, the fprightly reader, who takes up my paper in order to be diverted, very often finds himself engaged unawares in a serious and profitable courfe of thinking; as on the contrary, the thoughtful man, who perhaps may hope to find fomething folid, and full of deep reflection, is very: often infenfibly betrayed into a fit of mirth. In a word, the reader fits down to my entertainment without knowing his bill of fare, and has therefore at least the pleasure of hoping there may be a dish to his palate. I must confefs, were I left to myself, I fhould rather aim at inftructing than diverting; but if we will be useful to the world, we must take it as we find it. Authors of profeffed feverity difcourage the loofer part of mankind from having any thing to do with their writings. A man muft have virtue in him, before he will enter upon the reading of a Seneca or an Epictetus. The very title of a moral treatife has fomething in it auftere and fhocking to the carelefs and inconfiderate. For this reafon feveral unthinking perfons fall in my way, who would give no attention to lectures delivered with a religious ferioufnefs or a philofophic gravity. They are infnared into fentiments of wifdom and virtue when they do not think of it; and if by that means they arrive only at fuch a degree of confideration as may difpofe them to listen to more studied and elaborate difcourfes, I fhall not think my fpeculations useless. I might likewife obferve, that the gloominefs in which fometimes the minds of the best men are involved, very.. often stands in need of fuch little incitements to mirth and laughter, as are apt to difperfe melancholy, and put our faculties in good humour. To which fome will add, that the British climate, more than any other, makes entertainments of this nature in a manner neceffary, A If what I have here faid does not recommend, it will at least excufe the variety of my fpeculations. I would not willingly laugh but in order to inftruct, or if I fometimes fail in this point, when my mirth ceases to be instructive, it fhall never ceafe to be innocent. fcrupulous conduct in this particular, has, perhaps, more merit in it than the generality of readers imagine; did they know how many thoughts occur in a point of humour, which a difcreet author in modefty fuppreffes; how many ftrokes of raillery present themfelves, which could not fail to please the ordinary tafte of mankind, but are ftifled in their birth by reafon of fome remote tendency which they carry in them to corrupt the minds of those who read them; did they know how many glances of ill-nature are induftriously avoided for fear of doing injury to the reputation of another, they would be apt to think kindly of those writers who endeavour to make themfelves diverting, without being 3 im |