Page:The Poetical Works of Elijah Fenton (1779).djvu/16

 lous, he inconsiderately told her, as a certain instance of her lord's affection, the private orders he had left behind him, which plainly shewed, 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 still had for her lord: her thoughts were so wholly taken up with the cruelty of his orders, that she could not consider the kindness which 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 Anthony, 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