Chapter CLVIII: Section LI: Fourth side. Patience. A female figure, very

expressive and lovely, in a hood, with her right hand on her breast, the left extended, inscribed "PATIENTIA MANET MECUM."

She is one of the principal virtues in all the Christian systems: a masculine virtue in Spenser, and beautifully placed as the _PHYSICIAN_ in the House of Holinesse. The opponent vice, Impatience, is one of the hags who attend the Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh; the other being Impotence. In like manner, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," the opposite of Patience is Passion; but Spenser's thought is farther carried. His two hags, Impatience and Impotence, as attendant upon the evil spirit of Passion, embrace all the phenomena of human conduct, down even to the smallest matters, according to the adage, "More haste, worse speed."