in the steadiness of female virtue. Lastly, it may be suggested that the presence of their wives, would scarcely have been so very earnest a desire, among men who had preferred the licentiousness of the camp to the decorum and affection of domestic life.

There is not a more gloomy study than the history of the concluding scenes of Roman greatness; nearly all ages and sexes appeared to contend with each other, in the rapidity of their descent down the steeps of vice. Under the emperors, tyranny and crime, in all their flagitious and appalling aspects; every suspicion that could embitter existence and loosen the bonds of society; every hateful sentiment, and every baneful passion, had pervaded the unwieldy empire. The history oppresses our mind like a frightful dream; it is hard not to associate the notion of external gloom with the moral ruin, and clothe the face of nature with the dismal hue, the sullen stillness of a gathering storm; we seem to behold the coming "planetary plague,"

When Jove

Shall o'er some high-viced city hang his poison

In the sick air.

In the descriptions of their gorgeous splendour and their baleful revolutions, their joys appear like demoniac wildness; their sobriety, the broodings of conspiracy or fear. To pursue inquiry through such ages would be useless; the manners of a people sinking into ruin from their own corruption, will never be appealed to, either for evidence of what is natural or authority for what is useful.

We may therefore proceed to modern times,

passing over the long period of monotonous barbarism that parts them from the ancient world, and which seems like the disorder of chaos. But during that interval, the traces of corrupted civilization nearly wore out, and the children of men, with the same nature and passions as ever, received, by reverting to original and vigorous rudeness, a new character, which has produced conditions of society, and forms of refinement, very different in many respects from the former.

CHAPTER II.

CONDITION OF WOMEN IN THE AGES OF

CHIVALRY, AND IN CIVILIZED

CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES.

SECTION I.

Sources of the Chivalrous Spirit.

CHIVALRY has been alternately represented as the brightest exhibition of human virtue, and as a baneful enthusiasm, which served to give the benefits of confederacy to the vices of barbarians, whose virtues existed only in romance.

However this question may be decided, its effects on the fortunes of women will not be disputed.

The least literary reader is acquainted with its leading features, through the medium of poetry and tales. Its lofty spirit, its heroic deeds, its devoted love, remain to delight our imaginations, while the turbulence and ferocity against which its bright, but desultory fires were kindled, have long since sunk before a cooler, but more invincible champion,— sound knowledge.

Chivalry appears to have sprung out of religious enthusiasm, grafted upon manners and institutions derived from the ancient Germans; for, though all writers are agreed that it was not devised or instituted by the Church, no doubt can be entertained of the religious spirit by which it was animated.

Some writers think that much of its spirit, and some of its peculiar customs, were introduced into Spain by the Arabians*. The Arabians were certainly less barbarous than the Europeans of those days; even in the Eastern countries, where women are most degraded, Sir John Malcolm thinks they had not been always so.

In his History of Persia, he says, "In Persia, under the Kaianian dynasty, which ended with the conquest of Alexander, courage was hardly held higher than generosity and humanity, and the first heroes are not more praised for valour, than for clemency and munificence. If we credit Firdousee, most of the laws of modern honour appear to have been understood and practised, with one exception, and that in favour of the ancient Persians. Their duels were generally with the most distinguished enemies of their country, or of the human race. The great respect in which the female sex was held, was no doubt the principal cause of their progress in civilization; women were at once the cause of ge

nerous enterprise and its reward. It appears, that

in former days they had an honourable place in society, and we must conclude that an equal rank with the males, which is secured to them by the ordinances of Zoroaster, belonged to them long before the time of that reformer, who paid too great attention to the habits and prejudices of his countrymen, to make any serious alteration in so important a usage. It was not the custom for sons to sit in the presence of their mothers."

* RICHARDSON's Dissertation on the Eastern Nations.

Sir John Malcolm expressly refers their manners to a spirit of chivalry.

If any confidence at all can be placed in the historical records of China, which the Père Du Halde examined, the women even there were not always secluded or degraded, but in early times had a good deal of power and influence.

In referring the respect paid to women by the rude barbarians of Europe to the influence of Eastern manners, the fact seems corroborated by the habits of the Eelyats or wandering Tartars, at present; and as it serves to introduce an additional view of the female condition, it may be introduced*.

"The Eelyats, or wandering Tartars, are very rude, so as to seem nearly incapable of civilization, but notwithstanding their wild and predatory habits, they are very honest and faithful amongst each other.

"They live in perpetual summer, as they migrate with the seasons; they are very neglectful of Mahommedan rules, and even when one of them, by public employment or some other cause, is civilized and educated, he always brings his savage ideas with him. 'What a fine place to plunder,' was the only observation made by one of them, on seeing Calcutta.

"Their hospitality and kindness to strangers is unbounded. The Khan received the British embassy with great splendour, and next day being frosty, the party found their horses (200 in number) had all been rough-shod by his desire. The women are nearly free, but industrious, useful, much beloved, and very virtuous. A Persian gentleman, remarkable for his

MALCOLM'S Persia,