flain a vast number of citizens, obliged the daughters of the murdered to dance in the blood of their parents. Nor are the Jewish people exceed ed by the moderns in extravagance. It is well known, that the Ifraelitish Ladies were accustomed to powder their hair with gold duft.

We find many of the Romans committing the most favage outrages. Even to revenge a trivial jeft, Antoninus Caracalla put all the citizens of Alexandria to the fword, and razed the city to the ground.

The Romans, in many inftances, combined the deepest treachery with all the wantonnels of cruelty. The punica fides might well be retorted on themselves. The perfidy of Servius Galba, who affembling together the inhabitants of three cities in Spain, under the pretence of confulting their common fafety, cut off feven thousand at a stroke; or of Licinius Lucullus, who, in violation of exprefs articles, maffacred twenty thousand of the Caucæi, can fcarce be paralleled in modern times. The mild Auguftus himfelf was guilty of the greatest e. normities. It is well known, that on taking the city of Perufium, he offered up as a facrifice to the manes of his uncle Julius, three hundred of the principal citizens. Have we ever had occafion to execrate fuch living characters, as thofe of Nero or Domitian? Are not the ten perfecutions fo pregnant with barbarity, that the history of them feems incredible to the moderns?

If fuch then were the cruelties of the Greeks and Romans, muft not imagination recoil from the immanity of the nations around them? How can we form an adequate idea of these, whom the Greeks and Romans filed Barbarians-On a general view of their morality, the Barbarians were not more barbarous. The beftiality of the German Women, in throwing their infants at the faces of the Roman foldiers, to damp the ardor of

ambition and of victory, by the most terrifying fpectacles inhumanity could exhibit, is even more defenfible than the outrages I have already mentioned.

As to other vices, that characterised these two politer people, the licentious communication of the fexes, we know, was pretty generally countenanced.

The crimes of Sodom was openly avowed in Greece: And an excess of drinking was fo frequent there, that pergracari implied the frenzy of drunkennefs. We are told (though 'tis hardly to be credited) that Cyrus, preparing to attack his brother Artaxerxes, published a manifefto, in which he afferted his fuperior claim to the throne of Perfia,because he could: fwallow the moft wine. Is it poffible, that fo fhameless a manifefto could be published by a modern Prince?

For thefe vices, the Roman people, alfo, were notorious-ad diurnam ftellam matutinam potantes, from Plautus to Seneca; the latter of whom affirmed, that the women even exceeded the men.

With refpect to the prodigality and luxury of the ancients, we have numerous inftances unequalled by our wildest exceffes-our most delicate refinements in voluptuoufnefs. We are told by Plutarch, that Alexander spent twelve millions of talents upon the funeral of Hephæftion. And, for the extravagance of the Emperor Heliogabalus, what Prince on earth can now pretend to rival him?-Hiftorians inform us, that, while his fishponds were filled with rofe-water, his lamps furnished with the balfam that diftills from the Arabian groves

his dining-room ftrewed with faffron, and his porticoes with gold-duft, he had every day new vellments of the richest filk, or woven gold!

If it be faid, that though not fo extravagant, we are yet more volup tuous than the ancients, I would only look to the Roman luxuries at Baie

to

among his fubjects. To render the body robuft and active, to the extinction almost of the mind, was the fole object of the Spartan legiflator.

In Greece, the common people were fubjected to fuch a legislation and fuch a religion, that their brighteft morals were stained with impurities. The applauded virtues of the Spartan common-wealth, are blended with glaring imperfection. The laws of Lycurgus, fo repeatedly the theme of oratorical panegyrick, are little elfe than a mass of corruption. They are founded in falfe and vicious principles. They hold forth abfurdities, which would fhock the good sense of a modern legiflator. Among a variety of other barbarities, they directed the expofure, and confequently, the deftruction of fuch children as were born too delicate or weak, for the military functions of a Spartan. The Spartans in fact were foldiers, not men. Their law-giver feems to have viewed the one as contradistinguished from the other; fince in the warlike character, which confifted in triumphing over the tendernefs of nature, and confronting death with favage resolution, he hath funk all the virtues and affections of humanity. From the cultivation of the gentler paffions he was fo utterly averfe, that he banished all the humanizing arts; left they fhould foften the bofom into benevolence, or excite the focial fympathies, or kindle thofe charities of father, fon, and brother, which he diligently laboured to extinguish. Hoftile indeed, to eve

The boys, therefore, were taken away, at a very early age, from their parents; and inured, under the care of the ftate, to hardships, and difficulties, and dangers. They were taught to bear the feverest extremities of heat and cold, hunger and thirft, with patience and tranquillity. And, merely with a view of exertifing or hardening their bodies, werę often beat in fo mercilefs a manner, that they expired under the whip: And (what wonderfully proves the force of habit) they have been known, in fuch fituations, to expire without a groan. Thus then, all natural affection between parents and children was deftroyed or precluded; and the direft ferocity planted in its place. It feems indeed, that parents felt fome intereft in the fate of their offspring: For Spartan mothers have been applauded for their firmness and magnanimity whilst they rejoiced over their children flain in battle, and pointed with triumph to the mangled bodies. To teach them the cunning and artifice which they might have occafion to practise against the enemy, the Spartans were countenanced by the legislator in thievery. The best thieves were the beft fubjects. The Spartan, indeed, is only to be contemplated in the camp. Eftranged from all the virtues and comforts of domeftic life, he could fcarcely boaft the fidelity or attachment of a female, to foften his military cares! The women of Lacedæmon had neither gentleness nor modefty, nor fenfe of fhame. Such, then, was Sparta: Cruelty and cunning were her cardinal virtues. Yet the claffic fcholar looks back on Sparta with admiration.

The other celebrated city of
Greece

Greece hath a higher claim to our notice. The virtues of Athens were not fo ambiguous or fo revolting. But the Athenians feem to have been as ftrangely addicted to fuperftition as the Spartans were to war. They devoted half their time to the worfhip of the Gods: And the homage that fo occupied their attention, was most abfurd and ridiculous. This, however, is the leaft exceptionable part of a religion, which, by holding forth the molt flagrant examples of immorality in the perfon of the Gods, by exacting a valt variety of fhocking and indecent ceremonies, and by enforcing the practice of obfcenities under the cover of mystery, must have tinctured with impure notlons the best-difpofed minds, and have depraved the moral conduct, in almost every fituation: Where a popular religion enjoins the practice of vice, the vulgar must be neceffarily vitious. And, for the philofophers, could they diffipate from their bofoms the early and familiar prejudices of the only religion which they knew? No fchoolboy, I fuppofe, needs be informed, that the wife and virtuous Socrates (for fuch hath he been called) was weak enough to facrifice a cock to fculapius. Nor is it to be diffembled, that this virtuous man was probably guilty of pæderafty-a crime indifputably fanctioned by most of the fages and poets of Athens.

The influence of polite literature en the morals, is certainly visible in every community: And the fages and poets of Athens were, generally, her best moral men. Thefe, however, were comparatively few. The great body of the people was a contaminated mafs.

Polished, as Athens is faid to have been, fhe was very deficient in that pure refinement which includes chaftity and delicacy. There is one circumftance fufficiently proves it. Her Courtezans were her only women of education. They were abfolutely the only women who were easily approachable by the other fex, who appeared at public places, who adorned and enlivened fociety by their polite addrefs, and fparkling converfation, who prefided over the fashions and influenced the manners. With fuch our Socrates himfelf converfed. With fuch only he could relax the ftern features of philofophy. He had his fweet. Xantippe, indeed at home: But, affable as the was, I am rather inclined to think that he had no great difrelish to an evening-lounge with Thais : tho' the converfation of the latter might be difadvantageously opposed to that of his foft infinuating confort!-The virtuous women of Athens, in truth, were fo miferably degraded, that they were rendered incapable of the fweet communion of foul with foul. Uneducated, grofsly ignorant, fhut up from fociety, they were treated as flaves, and expected to perform the meaneft offices. They had no room to exert their native fenfibility. They had no ideas to communicate: And, if they had, there was no congenial bofom near, to cherish or enliven fentiment, by friendly approbation, and fympathetic affection!

From this fituation of the Athenian women, we can form no very exalted idea of Athens itfelf. 'Tis an undoubted fact, that the domeftic circle, in which the feminine virtues diffufe their fweetnefs, is the finest nurfery of national morality.

[To be concluded in our next.]

PATRIOTS and friends to mankind would wish to know how to ameli,

gard