America. But although it had defcribed that mighty catalogue of evils, that would not "evince the ineftimable benefits refulting to liberty itfelf from the lawful dominion of hereditary kings," nothing but our actual experience evinces this fact; and an experience which teaches us that we are indebted for our liberties, not to the monarchical, but the popular branch of the conftitution. To thefe affertions we may apply what our author fays concerning the mufcles in the Grecian ftatues, "That they are boldly pronounced." In the third chapter of his Hiftory, Dr. Gillies gives an account of the return of the Dorians to Peloponnefus, under the conduct of the Heracleida; of the Eolic, Ionic, and Doric migrations; of the establishment of colonies in Thrace, Macedon, Africa, and Magna Grecia; of the abolition of monarchy in Greece; of the Amphictyonic council; the oracle of Delphi; the Olympic games; and the Spartan laws. In these we find nothing different from the many modern compilations of Grecian history, except under the laft article, the legislation of Lycurgus. Various theories have been formed concerning the fingular fyftem of policy which prevailed at Sparta; but it muft be confeffed that our author's is the most curious that has yet appeared. After relating the common tales and fables concerning Lycurgus, on the authority of Plutarch, (who lived more than a thousand years after his hero) he tells us that the celebrated Spartan legiflator discovered, in the courfe of his travels, the immortal poems of Homer; and upon the basis of the government and manners of the heroic times, defcribed in the Iliad, erected the Lacedemonian republic. To attribute the character and spirit of a whole nation to the efforts of an individual, to deduce the form of government in a country from the accidental discovery of a book, may employ the speculation of a monk in his cell, but argues a total unacquaintance with real life, and the hiftory of human affairs. Solon confeffed what every legiflator must have felt," that he adapted his inftitutions to the times; and gave the Athenians, not the best. laws, but the best which they were capable of receiving." From a comparison too between the government and manners of the heroic times, as defcribed by Homer, and those of the Spartan commonwealth, it evidently appears that the latter refer to an earlier ftate of fociety than the former, and characterife a more barbarous people. The general referve of character, the taciturnity, the laconic eloquence, the feverities inflicted on the young, which diftinguished the Spartan inftitution, bear a nearer resemblance to the favages of America, than to the heroes of Homer. Befide the internal evidence on this fubject, which, on all fubjects, human and divine, has great weight with philofophers, we we have the express evidence of history to confirm thefe deductions of reason. The army of the Heracleida, when they came to recover the dominion of their ancestors, was compofed of Dorians from Theffaly, who roamed the favage wilds of Oeta, Parnaflus, and Pindus, the braveft, but at the fame time the most barbarous of all the Greek tribes. The Achæans, the ancient inhabitants of Laconia, were compelled to seek new habitations, while the barbarians of Theffaly took poffeffion of their country. Of all the nations which are the fubject of hiftorical record, this people bore the nearest resemblance to the rude American tribes; and this furnishes the key to the Lacedemonian government. The change of monarchy to popular government, and the tendency to form colonies, which took place at the period which we are now reviewing, gave rife to the study of legislation. This fermentation in the human mind opened a new career to ambition and to wisdom. Morals and politics became the ftudy of the nobleft spirits; the change of fituation induced the people to demand laws; and fimple citizens began to exercise an authority which they owed to their talents and their virtues. No legiflator, however, enacts the laws, or forms the manners of a people, according to his own mind. The genius of the times is always too ftrong for the fpirit of the law-giver. Men are ever the fame; tenacious of their rights, and jealous of their independence. If, when authority is best established, a monarch cannot model a fyftem of government for his subjects, according to his own fancy, nor even pafs a fingle law contrary to the confent of the people, the chief of an inferior tribe, clad in the fame garb, and covered with the fame shed as his fellow citizens, could never enjoy the exercise of that power. A Lycurgus might appear, but who could create a people? Like every other legiflator, Lycurgus formed his fyftem of government from the ftate of fociety; established ancient ufages into laws, and gave a direction to the current of the times. He contrived, indeed, to effectuate what no other law-giver has done. By methods, which have never been explained, a violence was committed upon nature, which ordains a progrefs to nations as well as to individuals. The people were arrested in the first stage of improvement. A bold hand was put forth to that spring which is in fociety, and stopt its motion.† Strabo, lib. ix. p. 427. Ifocrat in Archidam. Our + The reader will find an elegant, and, what is of more confequence, a philofophical account of theSpartan government inELEMENTS OF THE PHILOSOPHY Our author's panegyric on the regulations concerning women and marriage in Sparta, and the modefty that took place in the intercourfe between the fexes, merits attention. Of this extraordinary circumftance,' viz. the fuperior fize of the Spartans, the evidence of contemporary writers could fcarte-, ly convince us, if they had barely mentioned the fact, witho explaining its caufe. But, in defcribing the fyftem of Lycurgos, they have not omitted his important regulations concerning the. intercourse between the fexes, women, marriage, and children, whofe welfare was, even before their birth, a concern to the republic. The generous and brave, it is faid, produce the brave and good; but the phyfical qualities of children ftill more depend on the conftitution of their parents. In other countries of Greece, the men were liberally formed by war, hunting, and the gymnaftic exercises; but the women were univerfally condemned to drudge in fedentary and ignoble occupations, which enfeebled the mind and body. Their chief em ployment was to fuperintend, more frequently to perform, the meaneft offices of domeftic economy, and to prepare, by the labour of their hands, food and raiment for themfelves and families. Their diet was coarfe and sparing; they abftained from the ufe of wine, were deprived of liberal education, and debarred from fashionable amuse-, ments. Women, thus degraded by fervility, appeared incapable of giving good fons to the republic, which Lycurgus regarded as the principal duty of the Lacedemonian females. By the inftitutions c Sparta, therefore, the working of wool, the labours of the loom and needle, and other mean mechanical arts, were generally committed to fervile hands. The free-born women enjoyed and practised theft liberal exercises and amufements, which were elsewhere confidered a the peculiar privilege of men; they affifted at the public folemnities mingled in general converfation, and difpenfed that applause and reproach, which, difpenfed by them, are always moft effectual. Hence they became not only the companions but the judges of the other fex ; and, except that their natural delicacy was not affociated to the honours of war, enjoyed all the benefit, without feeling the reftraint, of the Spartan of laws. The restoration of the natural rights of women restored moderation and modesty in the intercourfe between the fexes. Marriage, though enjoined as a duty, could only be contracted in the full vigour of age; and thefe fimple inftitutions had a more falutary influence on the phyfical improvement of the Spartans, than either the doubtful expedient, which prevailed among them to the latest times, of adorning the womens' apartments with the fineft ftatues of gods and heroes, that, by frequently contemplating thefe graceful images, they might produce fairer offspring; or the unnatural and deteitable cruelty of expofing delicate or deformed children; a practise ftrongly recommended by Lycurgus, and filently approved, or faintly blamed, by the greatest philofophers of antiquity.' The. PPILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, by the Rev. Mr. LOGAN; a fmall volume, but which throws more light on the Greek and Roman Hiftory than many quartos. The mafculine education, and robuft exercises of the Spartan women, confirm what we have mentioned, their near alliance to the American tribes. Homer defcribes women, in a more refined period, as employed in the labours of the loom and the needle." In the education of favages there is little diftinction between the fexes, and the female vies with the male in exercises that require bodily ftrength and mufcular exertion. The custom which prevailed, among the Spartan women, of "difpenfing reproaches," as our author calls it, he deduces alfo from the heroic ages; though, in truth, it is a general feature of the fex. The American favages, and even the English vulgar, have carried the art of "difpenfing reproach," or what is commonly called Scolding, to high perfection; though none of them ever read the Iliad, or heard the name of Homer. The modely which Dr. Gillies afcribes to the Spartan women is a very fingular kind of modesty. It would be uncandid and unjust to attribute to the early periods of the commonwealth the corruptions of its decline. But from the Meffenian war we learn what the "natural delicacy and modefty" of the Spartan women could bear. During the fecond expedition of the Spartans against Meffenia, the army bound themselves, by an oath, not to return home until they had fubdued their enemies. This engagement detained them feveral years in the field, during which Sparta, inhabited only by women, children, and old men, produced no fucceeding generation to fupport the future glories of the republic. Senfible of this inconvenience, the fenate recalled fuch young men as, having left their country before they had attained to the military age, were not under any obligation to keep the field; and enjoined them to copulate promifcuously with the married women, and to beget fons from a patriotic regard to the republic. The children, fays Dr. Gillies, page 131, born of these ufeful, though irregular connections, were diffinguished by the name of Parthenia, from the condition of their mothers! In ages when their history is better known, and when their manners are defcribed by cotemporary writers, the lubricity, impudence, and meretricious manners of the women, difgrace the fpecies. Both fexes went publicly to the fame bath; the youths and virgins, or rather young women, fought with one another stark naked; and danced, promifcuously, in the fame. modest *Juftin, Lib. iii Cap. 4. fays, that the Spartans took this refolution on the complaint of their wives, whofe conftitutions by no means agreed with fo long a widowhood. See alfo Strabo, Lib. vi, page 427, and 428. Such was their natural delicacy and modefty! modeft condition. The women had apertures in their robes, which, at every step they moved, difcovered the hidden beauties of their legs and thighs. In fhort, all ideas of chastity, modefty, and conjugal fidelity, were laid afide; a kind of community of women took place; they lent their wives to one another with the utmost complaifance; and displayed, in the first form of fociety, that profligacy of manners which prevails in a camp, and to which nations, who have run the career of refinement, only attain in the last stage of their existence. Euripides calls the Spartan women Avo pouavela;† Ariftotle tells us, that the profligacy of the women was the fource of almost all the diforders that reigned in Sparta. From this fituation of female manners, and confequent averfion to the married state, among the men the Spartizans endeavoured to make celibacy infamous, and cudgelled the bachelors into matrimony. Dr. Gillies, who, like perfons of a certain altitude of understanding, always deals in panegyric or invective,§ and who has not learned to appretiate the true value of things, is equally liberal of his encomiums on every part of the Spartan inftitutions and character, and holds them up to unlimited admiration, as he had held up the government and manners of the Greeks in the heroic ages. When, divefted of prepoffeffion and prejudice, we contemplate their valour and their patriotifm, we view them on their most favourable fide. They were the bravest and moft warlike people of Greece; bold in their refolutions, and conftant in their designs; but at the fame time imperious and auftere, deceitful, untractable, cruel, perfidious, and capable of facrificing every thing to their intereft or ambition. The cruelties which they exercised in Athens, after the Peloponnefian war, marks their atrocious and fanguinary character. They put to death, fays Xenophon, more perfons in eight months of peace, than the enemies had killed in thirty years of war. When the furviving citizens fought an afylum in foreign countries, their inhuman adverfaries prohibited, by a public edict, the cities of Greece to give them shelter; and commanded that, on pain of death, they fhould deliver them up to the thirty tyrants who then ravaged Athens. Their severity and cruelty to their flaves, or helots, furpaffes any thing that hiftory or fable have recorded or imagined of mankind. They Plutarch in Lycurg. + Androm. v. 595. Plutarch. Praifing and railing were his ufual themes, And both, to fhew his judgment-in extremes. Xenoph. de reb. geft. Græc. Lib. 2. DRYDEN. obliged |