She inflames love with wonder,) but because
She calls wise silence the soul's harmony.
She's truly chaste; yet such a foe to coyness,
The poorest call her courteous; and which is excellent,
(Though fair and young) she shuns to expose herself
To the opinion of strange eyes. She either seldom
Or never walks abroad but in your company.
And then with such sweet bashfulness, as if
She were venturing on crack'd ice, and takes delight
To step into the print your foot hath made,
And will follow you whole fields; so she will drive
Tediousness out of time, with her sweet character.

Notwithstanding all this excellence, Abstemia has the misfortune to
incur the unmerited jealousy of her husband. Instead, however, of
resenting his harsh treatment with clamorous upbraidings, and with the
stormy violence of high, windy virtue, by which the sparks of anger
are so often blown into a flame, she endures it with the meekness of
conscious, but patient, virtue; and makes the following beautiful
appeal to a friend who has witnessed her long suffering:

------Hast thou not seen me
Bear all his injuries, as the ocean suffers
The angry bark to plough through her bosom,
And yet is presently so smooth, the eye
Cannot perceive where the wide wound was made?

Lorenzo, being wrought on by false representations, at length
repudiates her. To the last, however, she maintains her patient
sweetness, and her love for him, in spite of his cruelty. She deplores
his error, even more than his unkindness; and laments the delusion
which has turned his very affection into a source of bitterness. There
is a moving pathos in her parting address to Lorenzo, after their
divorce:

------Farewell, Lorenzo,
Whom my soul doth love: if you e'er marry,
May you meet a good wife; so good, that you
May not suspect her, nor may she be worthy
Of your suspicion; and if you hear hereafter
That I am dead, inquire but my last words,
And you shall know that to the last I lov'd you.
And when you walk forth with your second choice
Into the pleasant fields, and by chance talk of me,
Imagine that you see me, lean and pale,
Strewing your path with flowers.--
But may she never live to pay my debts: (_weeps_)
If but in thought she wrong you, may she die
In the conception of the injury.
Pray make me wealthy with one kiss: farewell, sir:
Let it not grieve you when you shall remember
That I was innocent: nor this