long the walls of the house. The fame custom prevails even at present among the temperate Highlanders of Scotland; and is not quite worn out in New England. A married woman is under no confinement, because no man thinks of an act fo irregular as to attempt her chastity. In the Caribbee iflands adultery was unknown, till European Chriftians made fettlements there. At the fame time, there scarce can be any fewel for jealoufy, where men purchafe their wives, put them away at pleafure, and even lend them to a friend. But when by ripening fenfibility a man feels pleasure in his wife's attachment to him, jealoufy commences; jealoufy of a rival in her affections. Jealoufy accordingly is a fymptom of increasing esteem for the female fex; and that paffion is vifibly creeping in among the natives of Virginia. begins to have a real foundation, when inequality of rank and of riches takes place. Men of opulence ftudy pleasure: married women become objects of a corrupted taste; and often fall a facrifice, where morals are imperfect, and the climate an incentive to animal love. Greece is a delicious country, the people handsome; and when the ancient

It

ancient Greeks made the greatest figure, they were miferably defective in morals. They became jealous of rivals ; which prompted them, according to the rough manners of thofe times, to exclude women from fociety with men. Their women accordingly were never feen in public; and if my memory serve me, an accidental interview of a man and a woman on the public street, brings on the catastrophe in a Greek tragedy. In Hecuba, a tragedy of Euripides, the Queen excufes herself for declining to vifit Polymeftor, faying, 66 that it is indecent for a woman to look

a man in the face." In the Electra of Sophocles, Antigoné is permitted by her mother Jocafta to take a view of the Argian army from a high tower: an old man who accompanies her, being alarmed at seeing fome females pafs that way and afraid of cenfure, prays Antigoné to refor," fays he, women are prone to detraction; and to them the merest "trifle is a fruitful fubject of converfa❝tion *" Spain is a country that scarce

tire ;

yields

* Women are not prone to detraction, unless when denied the comforts of fociety. The cenfure

yields to Greece in finenefs of climate; and the morals of its people in the dark ages of Chriftianity, were not more pure than those of Greece. By a law of the Vifigoths in Spain, a furgeon was prohibited to take blood from a free woman,' except in presence of her husband or neareft relations. By the Salic law (a), he who fqueezes the hand of a free woman, fhall pay a fine of 15 golden fhillings. In the fourteenth century, it was a rule in France, that no married woman ought to admit a man to visit her in abfence of her husband. Female chastity must at that time have been extremely feeble, when fo little truft was reposed in the fair fex.

To treat women in that manner, may poffibly be neceffary, where they are in request for no end but to gratify animal love. But where they are intended for the more elevated purposes, of being friends and companions, as well as affec

of Sophocles is probably juft with refpect to his countrywomen, because they were lock'd up. Old maids have the character with us of being prone to detraction; but that holds not unlefs they retire from fociety.

(a) Tit. 22,

VOL. II.

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tionate

tionate mothers, a very different treatment is proper. Locks and fpies will never answer; for thefe tend to debafe their minds, to corrupt their morals, and to render them contemptible. By gradual openings in the more delicate fenfes, particularly in all the branches of the moral fenfe, chastity, one of these branches, acquires a commanding influence over females; and becomes their ruling principle. In that refined state, women are trufted with their own conduct, and may fafely be trusted: they make delicious companions, and uncorruptible friends; and that fuch at prefent is generally their cafe in Britain, I am bold to affirm. Anne of Britanny, wife to Charles VIII. and to Lewis XII. Kings of France, introduced the fashion of ladies appearing publicly at court. This fafhion was introduced much later in England: even down to the Revolution, women of rank never appeared in the ftreets without a mask. In Scotland, the veil, or plaid, continued long in fafhion, with which every woman of rank was covered when fhe went abroad. That fafhion has not been laid afide above forty years. In I

taly,

taly, women were much longer confined than in France; and in Spain the indulging them with fome liberty is but creeping into fashion. In Abyffinia polygamy is prohibited; and married women of fashion have by custom obtained the privilege of vifiting their friends, tho' not much with the good-will of many hufbands.

It were to be wished, that a veil could be drawn over the following part of their history. The growth of luxury and fenfuality, undermining every moral principle, renders both fexes equally dissolute: wives in that cafe deferve to be again lock'd up; but the time of fuch feverity is paft. In that cafe indeed, it becomes indecent for the two fexes to bathe promifcuoufly. Men in Rome, copying the Greeks, plunged together into the fame bath; and in time men and women did the fame (a). Hadrian prohibited that indecent cuftom. Marcus Antoninus renewed the prohibition; and Alexander Severus, a fecond time: but to fo little purpose, that even the primitive Christians

(a) Plutarch, Life of Cato.

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made