whom each knight selected as the chief object of his affection, of a nature so extravagant and unbounded as to approach to a sort of idolatry.

The original source of this sentiment is to be found, like that of Chivalry itself, in the customs and habits of the northern tribes, who possessed, even in their rudest state, so many honourable and manly distinctions, over all the other nations in the same stage of society. The chaste and temperate habits of these youth, and the opinion that it was dishonourable to hold sexual intercourse until the twentieth year was attained, was in the highest degree favourable not only to the morals and health of the ancient Germans, but must have contributed greatly to place their females in that dignified and respectable rank which they held in society. Nothing tends so much to blunt the feelings, to harden the heart, and to destroy the imagination, as the worship of the Vaga Venus in early youth. Wherever women have been considered as the early, willing, and accommodating slaves of the voluptuousness of the other sex, their character has become degraded, and they have sunk into domestic drudges and bondswomen among the poor,-the captives of a haram among the more wealthy. On the other hand, the men, easily and early cloyed with indulgencies, which soon lose their poignancy when

the senses only are interested, become first indifferent, then harsh and brutal, to the unfortunate slaves of their pleasures. The sated lover, and perhaps it is the most brutal part of humanity,-is soon converted into the capricious tyrant, like the successful seducer of the modern poet.

"Hard! with their fears and terrors to behold
The cause of all, the faithless lover cold,
Impatient grown at every wish denied,

And barely civil, soothed and gratified."

CRABBE'S Borough, p. 213.

Habitual indulgence seeks change of objects to relieve satiety. Hence polygamy, and all its brutalizing consequences, which were happily unknown to our Gothic ancestors. The virtuous and manly restraints imposed on their youth were highly calculated to exalt the character of both sexes, and especially to raise the females in their own eyes and those of their lovers. They were led to regard themselves, not as the passive slaves of pleasure, but as the objects of a prolonged and respectful affection, which could only be finally gratified when their lovers had attained the age of mature reason, and were capable to govern and to defend the family which should arise around them. With the young man imagination and sentiment combined to heighten his ideas of a pleasure which nature

instructed him to seek, and which the wise laws of his country prevented him from prematurely aspiring to share. To a youth so situated, the maiden on whom he placed his affections became an object of awe as well as of affection; the passion which he indulged for her was of a nature as timid and pure as engrossing and powerful; the minds of the parties became united before the joining of their hands, and a moral union preceded the mere intercourse of the sexes.

The marriages formed under these wise auspices were, in general, happy and affectionate. Adultery was infrequent, and punished with the utmost rigour; nor could she who had undergone the penalty of such a crime find a second husband, however distinguished by beauty, birth, or wealth. (Taciti Germania.) The awe and devotion with which the lover had regarded his destined bride during the years in which the German youth were enjoined celibacy, became regard and affection in the husband towards the sharer of his labours and the mistress of his household. The matron maintained that rank in society which love had assigned to the maiden. No one then, says the Roman historian, dared to ridicule the sacred union of marriage, or to term an infringement of its laws a compliance with the manners of the age. The German

wife, once married, seldom endeavoured to form a second union, but continued, in honoured widowhood, to direct and manage the family of her deceased husband. This habitual subjection of sensuality to sentiment, these plain, simple, virtuous, and temperate manners of the German women, placed the females in that high rank of society which the sex occupies when its conduct is estimable, and from which it as certainly declines in ages or climates prone to luxurious indulgence. The superintendance of the domestic affairs was assigned to the German women, a duty in which the men seldom interfered, unless when rendered by age or wounds incapable of warfare. They were capable of exercising the supreme authority in their tribe, and of holding the honours of the priesthood. But the influence of the women in a German tribe, as well as their duties in war, will be best understood from the words of Tacitus. "It is the principal incitement to the courage of the Germans, that in battle their separate troops or columns are not arranged promiscuously as chance directs, but consist each of a united family, or clan, with its relatives. Their most precious pledges are placed in the vicinity whence may be heard the cries of their females, the wailings of their infants, whom each accounts the most sacred witnesses and the dearest

eulogists of his valour. The wounded repair to their mothers and spouses, who hesitate not to number their wounds, and to suck the blood that flows from them. The females carry refreshment to those engaged in the contest, and encourage them by their exhortations. It is related, that armies, when disordered, and about to give way, have renewed the contest, at the instance of the women; moved by the earnestness of their entreaties, their exposed bosoms, and the danger of approaching captivity;a doom which they dread more on account of their females than even on their own ;-insomuch, that these German estates are most effectually bound to obedience, among the number of whose hostages there are noble damsels as well as men. They deem, indeed, that there resides in the female sex something sacred and capable of presaging the future; nor do they scorn their advice or neglect their responses. In the time of Vespasian we have seen Velleda long hold the rank of a deity in most of the German states; and, in former times, they venerated Aurinia and other females; neither, however, from mere flattery, nor yet in the character of actual goddesses."

The tales and Sagas of the north, in which females often act the most distinguished part, might also be quoted as proofs of the rank which they