remains is a mere animal impulse, a gross instinct, brief, ignoble, and uncertain.

The present enquiry, into the prevailing manners, and predominant passions, in certain stages of society, is merely made, with a reference to their influence on poetry. It is manifest, that in poetry, founded on the transactions of the heroic ages, love, if the manners of those ages are faithfully preserved, can properly have but little share: and that love can occupy but a subordinate department, in the productions of those poets, who, like Homer and Hesiod, actually live, and compose their works, while the manners of the heroic ages yet prevail.—The fair sex is chiefly introduced, in its weakness and calamities, as an object of violation, or a cause of war. The stern rugged natures, of those early hunters, agriculturists, and warriors.-Their constant occupation in a life of danger, toil, and activity, afforded little room or leisure, for those piping arts of peacethe sentimental part of love was then unknown, the poetry exclusively consecrated to the celebration of the gentle passion, was a stranger to their ears. Love is the favourite child of luxury and idleness, and these two sources of this delightful, but enfeebling offspring, were little known, in those ages, when habit made the flinty couch of war the thrice driven bed of down.-Toils of the body are, on many accounts, an effectual preservative, against wanderings of the mind, and, particularly, against the soft infection of love.

While the mind is occupied, by the toils, or the wants of the body, it is little disposed, to lose itself, in the abstractions of ideal enjoyment. In the state of society, to which I allude, the intervals between labour and necessary repose, are commonly brief, scarcely more than nature will demand, for food and necessary refreshment. Thus, in the life of constant activity and exertion,

exertion, which men universally led in those days, engaged, as they perpetually were, in the chace, the toils of the field, or the pursuits of war, they found but little leisure, to think on love, to soften their hearts, by meditation on the charms and attractions of beauty, or recollections of the pleasures formerly enjoyed.—When a religious festival, a plentiful harvest, or a signal victory, brought with it a longer pause than ordinary, from laborious employment, and a season of festivity and relaxation, all the sports and amusements, of the men of those times, were such, as bore some reference, or resemblance to war; as throwing the javelin, hurling the disk, and dancing in their armour, or listening to the song of bards, who celebrated the exploits of departed heroes. The two sexes, also, lived much separated from each other, and, in general, pursued their respective amusements apart. It may, therefore, well be supposed, that, in such a state of society, imagination and fancy would have little force, or influence. Yet, these` are the prime incentives, that cause love to predominate, as an occupation of life, as a permanent passion, ruling and triumphing in the mind. These are the seducers, that inflame the desires, of the more polished races of their fairy creations, of

men, with their sweet illusions,

more worth than any realities.

In addition to the power of mere occupation, and the want of leisure, to preclude thought, fancy, and imagination, it is certain, that in a frame, hardened and confirmed by perpetual toil, great muscular exertion, and exposure to all the vicissitudes of rigorous seasons, the sensibility of the nervous system must necessarily be diminished, and the body rendered less susceptible of the feelings of pleasure, or pain-the mind less capable of ideal refinements, and the visions of delight, that cherish love, in the bosom of ease. Love, considered

as

as a ruling passion, permanently and generally extending its empire, depends much more on moral, than on physical causes. The incitements of the senses are brief and interrupted; the illusions of fancy, the maddening influence of fond abstractions and amorous ideas, decking the beloved objects, in imaginary graces, and allurements perpetual and unwearied.

Another cause, which precluded amorous sentiment, and the prevalence of love, as a passion, engrossing the time, aud employing the mind, in a permanent manner, during the ancient heroic ages, was the facility, which men experienced, in such periods of society, of grati fying their desires. The wishes and inclinations of men become ardent, from opposition. What was, at first, but an instinctive impulse, a propensity, a slight inclination, by a series of obstacles is rendered a fu rious predominant passion, an irresistible bias, a care, a business of life. The difficulty of attainment collects all the thoughts, and attentions, and fixes them on the object of our wish. The good, or the enjoyment delayed, assumes new attractions, viewed through the medium of doubt and delay; like distant objects, seen through a mist, it appears greater than the reality. Want of reserve and delicacy, are ever unfriendly to the sentiment of love; and the women of those times were commonly but little burdened with either. Their manners were coarse, their minds artless, they were little acquainted with decorums, and total strangers to hypocrisy and dissimulation. They met the advances of

their lovers nothing loath. They spared them the suspense, the cares, and the delay of a long and vexatious courtship. They frankly avowed their wishes; nay, in many instances, they anticipated their lovers, in the declarations of a passion. Did the fair, in some few instances, prove coy and reluctant;-where persuasion

failed,

failed, force was called in to her aid. Thus, the legends of the heroic times abound in stories of the violences and outrages offered to the persons of women; and it is, from the prevalence of such transactions, that the custom arose, among those early heroes, of ascribing their birth to deities. It is also observable, that, in the ancient catalogues of names, distinguished in those ages of the Argonauts for instance; and of the Grecian and Trojan worthies; who were most conspicuous, in the attack and defence of Troy, a great proportion are stated, by the poets, to be the progeny of illicit love.

The prevailing manners of those periods were unfavourable to love, on this additional ground-a certain delicacy of manners, a gallantry, consisting in respectful motions of the characters, and respectful behaviour towards the persons of women, and a general deference to the softer sex are necessary, to spread and maintain the dominion of this tender but capricious passion.

Men, who lived in those ages, must have accompanied the severe toils, and the rough pursuits, in which they engaged, by a proportionable roughness, and brutality of manners, highly unfavourable to condescension or tenderness for the fair sex.-The pride of strength, the constant demand for its exertions, the honours and advantages, which attended the possession of it-all these must have induced men, to consider relative weakness, as an absolute inferiority of nature; and to despise softness of mind, as characteristic of weakness of frame, and, consequently, degrading to the manly character.-Love, that refined and noble passion, which elevates the mind, and exalts it above all selfish cares, which purifies the heart and affections, and views the beloved object, with an adoration, somewhat approaching that, which we pay to the divinity, is then unknown;

or,

or, were it known, would be treated with scorn and derision, as weakness and folly. Paris, who certainly was, in every respect, an accomplished gentleman, and had a great deal of the spirit of modern gallantry in his composition, is treated with much contumely, on this score, by his brother Hector, who yet is represented as a mild and courteous character, considering the times in which he lived, and as gentle and humane.-Auswagı -γυναιμανες ηπεροπεύα.-Those early heroes decried love, as an effeminate weakness, unworthy of a warrior, then the most dignified of all characters. They would have thought themselves debased, by the sacrifice of their time to such pursuits. The intercourse of lovers was little diversified-it afforded few incidents-it occupied a small portion in the thoughts and attentions of men— it bore no proportion to the other business of life-it seemed like a small speck or blot, in the records of human action.

The introduction of commerce, wealth, and luxury; of the fine arts; of learning, elegance, and refinement; of greater leisure, yet new occupations and objects; of more varied distinctions, in dignities, honours, and ranks in society; and of widely diversified situations in life; of new relations between man and man, gave birth to new feelings and emotions; or rather furnished new materials and incentives, which called into action, and expanded passions, propensities, and talents, which had hitherto been torpid, and contracted in the bosom. Love, ambition, avarice, as marking the spirit of peaceable accumulation, in opposition to the spirit of hostile rapine, began to show themselves. The bodies of men, as well as their manners and their minds, were softened. And ease and affluence, wealth, indulgence, and satiety taught them, to refine on their pleasures; to seek out new sources of enjoyment. Then,

various