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polished manners, thus described them. When I arrived, I was invited to take up my abode in the house of one of the chiefs, and received the greatest attention from all the family. The ladies, who according to custom were unveiled, were particularly kind. The daughter of my host was about fifteen years of age, and more beautiful than I can express. When I said I was thirsty, she ran and fetched me a cup of pure water; it was a draught from the fountain of life, brought by an angel, but it increased instead of extinguishing the flame her bright eyes had kindled in my breast.""

After describing the pain it gave him to depart without daring to show, even by a look, the admiration he felt for this young beauty, he observes, "A vain uninformed man, might have mistaken the manner of my fair cup-bearer. But I had experience of these Eelyat ladies, and well knew, that nothing was meant by that kindness and hospitality, with which they treat all strangers who visit their tents and houses. I believe, they are virtuous beyond all other women in Persia; and the man who should attempt seduction, would be sacrificed to the implacable honour of their male relations."

They are represented as bold and active. "But," says Malcolm, "though these women enjoy more freedom and consideration than others in Persia, they are still far off from the rank assigned to that sex, in the civilized nations of Europe. They toil, while the lord-like husband passes his time in indolence or amusements, and they are regarded more as servants than associates. Though polygamy is sel

dom practised, it is because they are poor; any one who attains station, immediately begins to adopt the manners of citizens, and indulge his sensuality; his first wives have to endure neglect. Their influence over their sons, however, usually lasts through life; they manage their households, and often choose their wives for them."

In this account, we cannot but perceive some points of resemblance between the manners of these tribes, and those of the ancient Germans; it is in the progress towards greater refinement, that the contrast begins. The religion of the Eelyat corrupts him; the civilization, such as it is, which he acquires in Persia, leaves him his vices, and destroys his virtues. In his rude state, his circumstances overrule the tendency of his religion; drawn into towns, and reclaimed from his wild life, he adopts the sensuality his religion permits, and presents us with the unusual example of the degradation of women being worse in the more civilized condition.

This could scarcely have occurred in Europe. In the habits and manners of the Roman people, their early conquerors found not the custom of secluding or degrading the female sex. Whatever corruptions the barbarians contracted from the luxury of the falling Empire, this was not among the number; and the tendency of Christianity, whenever they embraced that religion, was to increase the consideration due to women. By abolishing polygamy permanently and completely, it secured them from Eastern servitude, whatever the forms which, in other respects, succeeding barbarism assumed. It is certain, the

social condition of Europe became worse after the lapse of time, than in the first ages of barbarian rule. In history, our attention is chiefly engaged with the ferocity of those nations in war, and we forget that neither then, nor now, are barbarians destitute of all order and virtue among themselves. Perhaps, one of the many strong arguments we have against nourishing a warlike propensity, is the tendency of war to foster the ferocious passions, even in the social relations of life.

"Salvin, a priest of Marseilles, who wrote in the fifth century, has left a parallel between the manners of the Romans and Germans, at the time those fierce invaders were making inroads into every quarter of Europe. The progress of vice among the Romans was such, that a general corruption of manners was diffused through the Empire. Salvin says, that the barbarians seemed destined, not only to conquer, but to reform the vices of the age; wherever the Goths and Vandals carried their arms, no kind of licentiousness was seen, except among the old inhabitants." And he continues to draw a very strong contrast between the moral feeling of the barbarians, and the licentiousness of the Romans.

"Justin says of the Scythians, justice is cultivated in that country, more through the disposition of the people, than express laws, (JUSTIN, B. 2. Ch. 3;) and he adds, that it is truly wonderful to find nature give to them what the Greeks could never attain to, either through their long acquaintance with moral truth, or the precepts of their philosophers, and to find the manners of the civilized, surpassed by those of the

barbarians; so much more, says he, does the ignorance of ill do for these, than the knowledge of virtue for the others*."

We are so pained by the vices and miseries perpetually recurring in history, that we are tempted to turn, perhaps too easily, to the hope that all may not have been as dark as it seems.

But, whatever may have been the first character of those barbarians, it is certain that they had no knowledge, no institutions, no political wisdom, by which they could oppose any barrier to the natural consequences of wealth, acquired not by regular industry but by rapine. As numbers increased, so did dissensions and wars; as these increased, so did ferocity and disorder; and from the sixth to the eleventh century, when chivalry sprung up, the condition of society was frightful. "In those ages, all is a series of dark conflicts and bloodthirsty contentions, amongst which the sprouts of the feudal system, yet young and unformed, are seen springing up from seed sown long before. In the picture of those times, a double darkness seemed to cover the earth, in which a chaos of unruly passions showed no one general institution for the benefit of mankind, except the Christian religion; and that, overwhelmed by foul superstition, and guarded chiefly by barbarous, selfish, and disorderly priests, lay like a treasure hidden by a miser, and watched by men that had no soul to use itt."

"The powerful and wicked had no restraint • MURPHY'S Tacitus, Manners of the Germans. See note to + JAMES'S Hist. of Chivalry.

Sect. 19.

VOL. I.

G

imposed upon their actions. Bands of plunderers ranged through the whole of France and Germany; property was held by the sword, cruelty and injustice reigned alone, and the whole history of that age offers a complete medley of massacre, bloodshed, torture, crime, and misery. But the world was weary of barbarity, and a reacting spirit of order was born from the very bosom of confusion *."

The disagreement about the influence of chivalry, appears to arise very much from comparing its morals with those of the civilized and enlightened. The very comparison is a tribute to its merits; its true character is that of the brightest fruit that ever sprung from barbarism. "The spirit of chivalry, like a flame struck from the hard steel and the dull flint, was kindled into sudden light, by the savage cruelty of the nobles, and the heavy barbarity of the people†."

SECTION II.

Rise and Manners of Chivalry.

The precise time and manner in which chivalry was instituted have never been ascertained,-circumstances of no great moment to the present subject. It is its effects on the condition of women, and not its origin, we desire to examine.

All writers are agreed, that knighthood as an order existed from the earliest times of the kingdoms which sprung from the ruin of the Roman Empire; ST. PALAYE; MILLS;

* JAMES.

+ Ibid.

JAMES; SCOTT.

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