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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 counterfeited jealousy will bring him a great deal of pleasure, if he thinks it real; for he knows experi mentally how much love goes along with this passion, and will, besides, feel something like the satisfaction of revenge, in seeing you undergo all his tortures. But this, indeed, is an artifice so difficult, and at the same time so disingeneous, 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.

ter.

Mariamne had all the charms that beauty, birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, and Herod all the love that such charms are able to raise in a warm and amorous disposition. In the midst of all this his fondness for Mariamne, he put her brother to death, as he did her father not many years afThe barbarity of the action was represented to Mark Antony, who immediately summoned Herod into Egypt, to answer to the crime that was there laid to his charge. Herod attributed the summons to Antony's desire of Mariamne, whom, therefore, before his departure, he gave into the custody of his uncle Joseph, with private orders to put her to death, if any such violence was offered to himself. This Joseph was much delighted with Mariamne's conversation, and endeavoured with all his art and rhetoric, to set out the excess of Herod's passion for her; but when he found her still cold and incredulous, he inconsiderately told her, as a certain instance of her lord's affection, the private orders he had left behind him; which plainly showed according to Joseph's

interpretation, that he could neither live nor die without her. This barbarous instance of a wild, unreasonable passion quite put out for a time those little remains of affection she 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 soul 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 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 would have discovered such a secret. In short, he put his uncle to death, and very difficultly prevailed on himself to spare Mariamne.

After this he was forced on a second journey into Egypt, when he committed his lady to the care of Sohemus, with the same private orders he had before given his uncle, if any mischief befell himself. In the mean time, Mariamne so won upon Sohemus by her presents and obliging conversation, that she drew all the secret from him, with which Herod had intrusted him; so that after his return, when he flew to her with all the transports of joy and love, she received him coldly, with sighs and tears, and all the marks of indif

ference and aversion. This reception so stirred up his indignation, that he had certainly slain her with his own hands, had not he feared he himself should have become the greater sufferer by it. It was not long after this, when he had another violent return of love upon him: Mariamne was therefore sent for to him, whom he endeavoured to soften and reconcile with all possible conjugal caresses and endearments; but she declined his embraces, and answered all his fondness with bitter invectives for the death of her father and her brother. This behaviour so incensed Herod, that he very hardly refrained from striking her; when in the heat of their quarrel, there came in a witness, suborned by some of Mariamne's enemies, who accused her to the king of a design to poison him. Herod was now prepared to hear any thing to her prejudice, and immediately ordered her servant to be stretched upon the rack; who, in the extremity of his tortures, confessed, that his mistress' 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 suffered before him on the like occasion. Nor would Herod rest here, but accused her with great vehemence of a design upon his life, and by his authority with the judges, had her publicly condemned and executed. Herod soon after her death grew melancholy and dejected; he retired from the public administration of affairs into a solitary forest, and there abandoned 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 on from so sad an object by public storms, which at that time very nearly threatened him.

CAUTION CONCERNING MARRIAGE STORY OF EUGENIO.

By titles dazzled, or by wealth misled,
Minds ill-agreeing shame the nuptial bed;
The fair obnoxious to a sire's command
When forced without her heart to yield her hand,
Beholds the guilty priest with weeping eyes,
Like Iphigenia drest for sacrifice.

Or grant a pair by mutual vows combined,
And Cupid's torch with that of Hymen joined ;
Desire that blindly courts the married state
Is far unable to support the weight;
The fabric tottering on its scanty base

Sinks on the ruins of a beauteous face.

Or beauty, though it lasts, in time may cloy,
Or that capricious foe to mortal joy,
That nameless something may its taste destroy.

But where the judgment is allow'd its part,
And the clear head directs the beating heart,
The god of love attends the matchless pair,
For choice and merit fix the rover there.

JEFFREYS.

THE many misfortunes arising to interrupt the joys and destroy the peace of conjugal felicity, generally proceed from our not duly weighing beforehand, in what the comforts and conveniences of matrimony consist. In order to secure, as far as human prudence is capable, happiness in a wedded state, it is first to be mutually considered, whether the mind of the party we are about to engage with in this important affair, is formed on the principles of virtue; without which the duties of conjugal affection and friendship can never long subsist.

2dly. That riches are not to be looked upon as the only incitement to such an engagement; because, when wealth is merely the motive, lasting felicity is not to be expected.

3dly. That the charms of a good face, without the beauties of that better part, the mind, should not bewitch us so far, as to entail misery and disquietudes as long as life endures; which is too frequently the case, when appetite is sated.

4thly. It should be the mutual resolution of those, who are about to enter into that state, or are already engaged in it, to confine themselves, according to their station in life, to such sort of pleasures only which their circumstances will admit of, and which are consistent with the duty of reasonable and virtuous beings. A contrary behaviour will be attended with dreadful consequences, whereas the conduct above mentioned will lead us to real happiness. The following story may serve to illustrate the truth of what is here advanced.

Eugenio was a young gentleman, from the nature of his education addicted to gayety and expense; which he supported by the assistance of good sense and plentiful fortune, without injuring his reputation or estate. Having no family of his own, he made a visit to a friend, with the design of passing the summer with him in the country. Sophronia happened to be there at the same time, by the invitation of the lady of the house, with whom she had always been educated. Her person was nothing remarkable, but a sweet disposition and a good natural understanding made her conversation agreeable. Upon his first arrival, Eugenio was too well bred not to show a particular civility to one so much respected by the family; and Sophronia knew how to return it by a suitable behaviour. They had not been long acquainted, before the sprightliness of his conversation, and the amiable innocence of hers, begot a mutual desire of rendering themselves agreeable to each other. Eugenio's education had been too ingenuous to harbour a wish that was dishonourable; and Sophronia willingly encouraged a virtuous inclination, that would be so much for her advantage. She knew he possessed no ill qualities, and

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