straints, yet to preserve the decency of which highlypolished society is so jealous, is the great aim of all who sigh for personal gratification, and their nation's glory. Every sophistry is employed to honor depravity, every ingenuity is called upon to beautify deformity. Illicit perseverance is revered; illicit constancy is held sacred; success is applauded; gallantry is termed love, and appetite affection. It would be difficult to refine upon the principles of depravity with more dexterity than the French have done, or to give to every sexual vice a higher polish.

With such prejudices *, opposed to such principles, it is not wonderful that these two nations should find it so difficult to come to a mutual understanding, or to interpret each other's actions with fairness. Englishmen, uninitiated in the system of French tactics, unaccustomed to consider gallantry as a study, cannot interpret the language of looks and gestures, which, to the skilful, reveals the past or present intimacy of the parties, and never dream that any secret lurks beneath what is ostensible. A Frenchman, on the contrary, sees something hidden everywhere; he does not conceive that there can be an innocent look or sign between men and women; or that two persons of opposite sexes can see each other, unrestrained, without giving loose to every passion. The bonds and duties, which the former look upon as barriers to profligacy, he holds as nothing; and the modesty which they revere, the diffidence which he himself cannot deny, he considers as veils to cover secret wrong. The final result is that the opinion of the French, respecting English women, is very far, indeed, below their deserts, worse even than that which they entertain of their

Another proof that the French are guided by prejudices, and the English by principles, is the opinion entertained by both upon illegitimate children and their mothers. In France, where spurious offspring cannot be introduced into the family of the legal father, the mother continues to be honored, but the child is held in opprobrium. In England, the guilty mother is far more reprobated than the innocent child. The vanity of blood dictates the former rigour against an unfortunate being who had no lineage to boast of; justice, which reserves to each his fault, is the guide in England.

The opinions of the French upon English divorces are most extraordinary. They imagine that the honor of a British husband is satisfied the

own countrywomen; while the English retaliate, by allowing to the females of France a better repute than they deserve. Such always is the case when men and nations do not equally judge each other; and such it ever will be, while self is the universal standard of mankind.

The freedom which, in England, prevails, among unmarried persons, which there is thought indispensable to liberty of choice, and is promoted by parents for that very purpose, but which is so contrary to the practice of the French, is interpreted by them to be the most unbridled licentiousness that ever was let loose upon society. Every English girl, they say, is unboundedly unchaste, and neither future husbands nor parents care whether she is so or not. If, however, these persons would set aside petty prejudices, and reflect for a moment, according to the broad principles of nature and society, they would find the truth to be exactly the reverse of their conclusions. In fact civilised society could not exist under such a system as they suppose, and its effects would be instantaneously evident in a multiplicity of shapes. In France, indeed, their suspicions might be better founded, for there the safeguards of female innocence are few, and its enemies numerous; but it may be assumed

moment he has received damages, and that the money thus awarded is the price of his wife's virtue. All the ideas of that nation, concerning chastity, are founded upon the prejudices of vanity. It is strange, indeed, to make the honor of any man consist in an action which does not depend upon himself, as for instance, upon the virtue of another person. According to English opinions, the honor of a husband does not depend upon the virtue of his wife, a virtue which he can neither give nor take away, but upon his not becoming an accomplice in her vice. The rational mode to avoid this is to prove her guilt before a court of justice, and obtain the sentence of the law. The French think that the dishonor consists in publishing a wife's disgrace, and deem themselves less injured when they continue to live with a faithless woman, than when they separate from her. Such, indeed, was still the prevalence of feudal opinions in the minds of the nobility, and the dread of legal interference, that a husband would have been much blamed who sought for redress for his wrongs, unless by the sword. It cannot be too often repeated, that the notions of honor nowhere were so false, so much in opposition to virtue, yet so despotic as in France. If this volatile people had looked to the volatile Greeks, in this instance, they would have found that Solon held that husband as infamous, who continued to live with an unchaste wife.

as an axiom, that in every community which has made any progress towards civilisation, the freer the intercourse between the youth of both sexes, the purer are the morals of that community. If they were not pure, such intercourse would soon be nothing better than promiscuous, and the very foundations of the social system would be sapped; but where they are pure, it is without danger or inconvenience. There are countries* in which courtship between unmarried persons lasts for months, for years, during which every facility is given them to see and study each other, and to know whether their minds and dispositions suit; and if, as sometimes may occur, they are compelled to wait till circumstances of fortune and convenience make their union prudent, the utmost liberty is allowed them, without a suspicion of ill. These are the most moral countries of the civilised world, for if they were not so they would be the most depraved, and this they are assuredly far from being; but vice interprets them most viciously. They are also the most natural, for it certainly is more in the order of nature to allow a choice, and to establish a preference, between persons destined to pass their lives together in the irrefragable bond of matrimony, than to encourage sentiments, whether of tenderness or of passion, among men and women who cannot indulge them without infringing that bond. The law of nature, like the law of virtue, is the utmost liberty, the freest communication between the sexes while the heart is in suspense, and a choice is to be made-reserve and devotedness when the sacred vow is spoken.

Maternal + feelings bear the same relation in both coun

* There does not exist a spot upon the globe in which morality is greater than in Jersey and Guernsey, and there the utmost latitude is allowed to young persons. Military men go to these islands with their regiments, form attachments, propose marriage, and are frequently obliged to wait until their pay and emoluments enable them to support the charges of a family. In the mean time they see their betrothed with perfect liberty, sometimes during a year or two, and there is not upon record a single instance of the smallest misconduct. In the northern and Protestant parts of the Continent, the same conduct and the same results are quite common.

It would be unfair to judge this question by the fate of Savage the poet, or by any particular acts. The true test is the average of general opinion. Whatever is bad in England, obtains immediate and unbounded notoriety. VOL. II. 2 F

labour for their country's good, than to luxuriate in olives, vines, and vices.

Having examined four striking examples, a vain and a proud nation of antiquity, and a vain and a proud nation of modern history, all the most advanced of their respective periods in social progress, it is useless to carry the inquiry farther. In a work of this nature, the object is rather to lay down general principles, and to prove them, than to narrate facts, or to trace a picture of mankind.

PART III.

On the Reaction of the different Modifications of Social Habits upon the Characters of Nations.

THE mode in which the habits and manners of the fair sex react upon national character, is most evident from all the principles hitherto laid down. It cannot communicate any impulse which has not first been impressed upon it by the very causes which have formed and modified the habits and morals of the two sexes, and principally those of women.

This assertion requires so little proof, that, though the histories of the Greeks and Romans, of the French and English, abound with examples, wherever the two sexes have been engaged together, or can be supposed to have influenced each other in any one of the innumerable concerns which interest society, it would be superfluous to point them out minutely. It is sufficient to announce them in a very cursory statement of general results.

One of the principal desires of the Lacedæmonian men was, to inspire their females with heroism. The effect of this was, that no man among them who had acted with cowardice in battle dared appear before his wife. In Athens, when Leæna bit off her tongue, in order not to betray the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton, could these men be less than heroes? When Aspasia and her school corrupted the city, yet improved its manners, could Pericles be any

thing but depraved, yet refined? or Alcibiades not be a hero, a profligate, and a philosopher? As long as the

Romans taught their women to be virtuous, the outrage committed upon Lucretia inflamed them to enthusiasm, and decided the fortunes of the city. When the men became indifferent to chastity, prostitutes joined in plots against the state, and turned a patriot people into a horde of conspirators. In France, the men paid a childish and extravagant homage to women, and the women kept them in a state of childhood. They taught that the fair were created but for love and glory, and the fair unfitted them for every other thought. In England women have been treated as reasonable beings, as beings who never are so amiable as when they are virtuThe reaction there has been to inspire men still more with the love of reason and virtue, and to teach them that such are the qualities necessary to please. In every country the influence of females softens the manners and refines the habits of the opposite sex, but in England only has its tendency been to improve their minds, to enlarge their understandings, and to expand their hearts, because in England only have that sex acted towards the other upon principles which could give them the desire of passing their lives with rational companions, and make the mind and heart of greater value than the person.

ous.