Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

profeffion they might, without fin, have washed their hands to the elbows in blood as often as they pleased.

It is the bufinefs of parliament to redress all fuch grievances; and an incorrupt parliament would certainly make fuch laws as would effectually redress them.

U

[blocks in formation]

'NDER the head of MANNERS, I could not avoid making fome remarks on this most epidemical vice.

The breach of the most awful vows, the debauching of a virtuous wife, the deftruction of a family's peace for life, the introduction of a baftard instead of the lawful heir to an ample eftate, the provocation of an injured husband to that rage which no hufband can promise to restrain, the hazard of murder and of damnation thefe are what we of this elegant eighteenth century call gallantry, tafte, the bon ton, knowledge of the world, çavoir vivre, &c.

No statesman will look with an indifferent eye on the prevalency of lewdness in his country, if he has any regard for his country, and knows that this vice is not lefs mifchievous by debafing the minds, than by enervating and poisoning the bodies of the fubjects. A people weakened by the foul difeafe, are neither fit for fea nor land fervice, for agriculture, manufactures, nor population.

It is notorious, as above hinted, that a certain late reign exhibited from the throne a very grofs example

of

of broken matrimonial vows. The effects of that evil example remain ftill, though the behaviour of the prefent king (whom God preferve) is the very oppofite of that I refer to. It will appear hereafter, that the examples of kings do not make right and wrong. And our wicked wits may rack their brains till doomsday; but will never be able to prove, that the promiscuous commerce of the fexes is confiftent with the order of nature, while the numbers of both that are born are so nearly equal, which effectually cuts off the pretext of any one to carry on a commerce with a plurality, and obliges every one to keep to one.

Would any of our modern wits chufe to be thought the fon of a wh-, rather than born in wedlock? Would any of them chufe to have his fifter or his daughter debauched? Do we not pronounce the contented cuckold, the wretch, who will bear with patience the defilement of his bed, a difgrace to the fpecies? Is it not then manifeft, that every man who is guilty of lewdness is felf-convicted, of doing that by others which he will not bear at the hand of any other? This is acting directly contrary to the golden rule, which all nations have adopted, viz. you would not have done to you, do not that to others.' If any man will fairly stand forth and declare, that he will do what he pleases, whether right or wrong, he declares himself the enemy of all order, and unfit to be fuffered to exist among rational and moral beings.

What

That every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband, is the voice of nature as well as of fcripture.

Polygamy is unnatural. By the Mahammedan law any man may have four wives. But few men take the

advantage

advantage of the law. They who have the greatest number, are always the most jealousa.

Young men would do well to confider, that the indulging of thofe defires only inflames their rage.

Remarkable is the ftory of a beautiful Arabian woman, taken by force from her husband by the governor of Cafa, who told the khalif, ordering him to restore her, that if he would give him leave to keep her one year, he would be content to have his head ftruck off at the end of the

year

b

A man's leaving the bed of his worthy spouse, who perhaps now begins to verge toward age, and his invading that of his friend, who trufts him, what does it fhew, but that he is capable of the basest treachery, if he can but get the pruriency of his filthy luft fcratched upon a finer fcrubbing poft. And the woman, whofe libidinous difpofition

(Cum tibi flagrans amor et libido,

Quæ folet matres furiare equorum,
Sæviet circa jecur ulcerofum

Non fine queftu.

HOR.

drives her from her home and her husband, raging, as Horace here defcribes fome ladies of his times, with the luft of mares fcampering over the meadows,— what elegance, what tafte, does the exhibit? It is granted, that love, where the ornaments of the mind more than those of the outward form are the object, is a paffion full of elegant fentiment. But love can have no place where one of the parties is engaged to another perfon. The only fentiments, which can enter into fuch a connexion are thofe of luft and of remorse. Where the elegance of them lies, I own I do

a MOD. UNIV. HIST. VI. 247.

b Ibid. 11. 84.

do not understand. Neither party can think of the other but with disapprobation.

Our great folks feem to affect to be the contrafts of the philofopher in A. Gellius, who would not be confcious to bimfelf of fin, though he could conceal it from both gods and men. They feem to be above regarding either self-consciousness, or the knowledge of gods or men.

By the most antient and honourable, of all lawgivers, Mofes, adultery, in both fexes, was made. capital a. And if ab virgin was feduced, the man was obliged to marry her, or find her a husband.

Adultery by confent was punished in Egypt, in the man, with a thoufand lashes with rods; a punishment incomparably worse than hanging or beheading; and in the woman with the lofs of her nofe. I don't know from whence I had this; but I known I did not write it, nor any other fact, without authority.

Solon the Athenian legiflator, gave the court of Areopagus power to correct all idle perfons . The fame law-giver allowed a husband, or any perfon, who surprised an adulterer in the act, to kill him on the spot d..

Among the Athenians, if a husband caught his lady tripping, he was obliged to divorce her. The law did not allow him to receive her again. An adulterefs was not allowed to enter the temples. Romulus likewife made a law, which is recorded by Aulus Gellius. "PELLEX ASAM JUNONIS NE TAGITO. SI TAGET, ARNUM FOEMINAM CAIDITO." Let not the harlot of a married man touch the altar of Juno [the goddess of

a EXOD. XX11. 16.

c Ubb. Emm. DE REP. ATHEN. 1. 100.
d Plut. in Solon.

b LEVIT. XX. 10.

[ocr errors]

of marriage]. If he does, let her offer a female lamb [by way of expiation]. Among the Spartans there was no fuch crime as infidelity to the marriage bed, nor did Lycurgus use any precaution against it; but the virtuous education he prefcribed for the youth of both fexes.

Among the Athenians, fornication, adultery, and celibacy, were punishable crimes. The debaucher of a virgin was obliged to marry her himself, or find her a fuitable husband, fays Potter. And Athenæus tells us, that at the Lacedemonian religious feafts, it was cuftomary for the woman to feize all the old batchelors, and drag them round the altar, beating them.

Such as frequented infamous women, Solon did not allow to harangue the people; thinking, that men without fhame were not to be fo far trufted a,' An archon, or magiftrate, overtaken with liquor, he ordered to be put to death, for bringing difgrace upon the office b.

Romulus punished adultery in women with deaths.

Domitian, in his first years, fhewed an attention to the manners of the people. He reftrained licentioufnefs, degraded a fenator for being too fond of dancing, deprived lewd women of the privilege of being carried in litters, or of enjoying legacies, and punished adultery with death d.

Several veftal nuns were found guilty of lewdness. They were buried alive, and their gallants whipped to death

The Emperor Macrinus made an edict, by which every adulterer and adulterefs were to be tied together, and burnt alive [to cool their luft] f.

a ANT. UNIV. HIST. VI. 314. Plut. in Solon.

[blocks in formation]

Manilius

b Ibid.

e Ibid. x11. 45!.

« PredošláPokračovať »