Mr. SPECTATOR,

I have read your Papers which relate to Jealousy, and desire your Advice in my Case, which you will say is not common.  I have a Wife, of whose Virtue I am not in the least doubtful; yet I cannot be satisfied she loves me, which gives me as great Uneasiness as being faulty the other Way would do.  I know not whether I am not yet more miserable than in that Case, for she keeps Possession of my Heart, without the Return of hers.  I would desire your Observations upon that Temper in some Women, who will not condescend to convince their Husbands of their Innocence or their Love, but are wholly negligent of what Reflections the poor Men make upon their Conduct (so they cannot call it Criminal,) when at the same time a little Tenderness of Behaviour, or Regard to shew an Inclination to please them, would make them Entirely at Ease.  Do not such Women deserve all the Misinterpretation which they neglect to avoid?  Or are they not in the actual Practice of Guilt, who care not whether they are thought guilty or not?  If my Wife does the most ordinary thing, as visiting her Sister, or taking the Air with her Mother, it is always carried with the Air of a Secret:  Then she will sometimes tell a thing of no Consequence, as if it was only Want of Memory made her conceal it before; and this only to dally with my Anxiety.  I have complained to her of this Behaviour in the gentlest Terms imaginable, and beseeched her not to use him, who desired only to live with her like an indulgent Friend, as the most morose and unsociable Husband in the World.  It is no easy Matter to describe our Circumstance, but it is miserable with this Aggravation, That it might be easily mended, and yet no Remedy endeavoured.  She reads you, and there is a Phrase or two in this Letter which she will know came from me.  If we enter into an Explanation which may tend to our future Quiet by your Means, you shall have our joint Thanks:  In the mean time I am (as much as I can in this ambiguous Condition be any thing) SIR,

  Your humble Servant.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

’Give me Leave to make you a Present of a Character not yet described in your Papers, which is that of a Man who treats his Friend with the same odd Variety which a Fantastical Female Tyrant practises towards her Lover.  I have for some time had a Friendship with one of these Mercurial Persons:  The Rogue I know loves me, yet takes Advantage of my Fondness for him to use me as he pleases.  We are by Turns the best Friends and the greatest Strangers imaginable; Sometimes you would think us inseparable; at other Times he avoids me for a long Time, yet neither he nor I know why.  When we meet next by Chance, he is amazed he has not seen me, is impatient for an Appointment the same Evening:  and when I expect he should have kept it, I have known him slip away to another Place; where he has sat reading the News, when there is no