m but too good a Judge of your Paper of the 15th Instant, which is
a Master-piece; I mean that of Jealousy: But I think it unworthy of
you to speak of that Torture in the Breast of a Man, and not to
mention also the Pangs of it in the Heart of a Woman. You have very
Judiciously, and with the greatest Penetration imaginable, considered
it as Woman is the Creature of whom the Diffidence is raised; but not
a Word of a Man who is so unmerciful as to move Jealousy in his Wife,
and not care whether she is so or not. It is possible you may not
believe there are such 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
pleasantest Man in the World every where else; the greatest Sloven at
home when he appears to none but his Family, and most exactly
well-dressed in all other Places. Alas, Sir, is it of Course, that to
deliver one's self wholly into a Man's Power without Possibility of
Appeal to any other Jurisdiction but to his own Reflections, is so
little an Obligation to a Gentleman, that he can be offended and fall
into a Rage, because my Heart swells Tears into my Eyes when I see him
in a cloudy Mood? I pretend to no Succour, and hope for no Relief but
from himself; and yet he that has Sense and Justice in every thing
else, never reflects, that to come home only to sleep off an
Intemperance, and spend all the Time he is there as if it were a
Punishment, cannot but give the Anguish of a jealous Mind. He always
leaves his Home as if he were going to Court, and returns as if he
were entring a Gaol. I could add to this, that from his Company and
his usual Discourse, he does not scruple being thought an abandoned
Man, as to his Morals. Your own Imagination will say enough to you
concerning the Condition of me his Wife; and I wish you would be so
good as to represent to him, for he is not ill-natured, and reads you
much, that the Moment I hear the Door shut after him, I throw myself
upon my Bed, and drown the Child he is so fond of with my Tears, and
often frighten it with my Cries; that I curse my Being; that I run to
my Glass all over bathed in Sorrows, and help the Utterance of my
inward Anguish 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 Pastimes. Hitherto I have only told you
the general Tempe