ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ESSAY ON ADULTERY. BARDESANES, the celebrated Syrian Heretic, observed in his day, that Christianity, in a moral and civil view, had been wonderfully beneficial: For that christians of all countries had retained the good qualities, and rejected the reigning vices of the several nations of which they were natives. "In Parthia, (says he) the christians, though Parthians, are not polyga"mists: Nor in Persia, though Persians, do they marry "their own daughters. In Bactria and Gaul, they do "not violate the marriage-bed. And, wherever they "reside, they resist the influence of corrupt laws and "wicked customs."* To come, however, to the present times-to the days of enlightened christianity-let us look to our own country, and more particularly to our fair country-women. That adulterous connexions are so fre * See Jortin's Remarks, vol. i. p. 357. edit. 1767. quent among us, I have attributed, in a great degree, to the immoralities of the Boarding-School-in a little poem entitled, "the Family Picture;" from which I shall here extract a few lines with their notes and some additional observations. It is in the Boarding-School, that "Girls for simple nature court finesse, The modish step, the figure, and the bloom; As melting masters o'er their bosoms lean, "Dancing, in our first female schools, is so important an object, that a whole train of masters, is necessary to its perfection. I suppose, Addison's idea of dancing only so far useful, as that a lady may know how to "sit still gracefully," would, at present, be discarded as ridiculous. And even Sallust would, perhaps, be thought a moralist absurdly severe, when speaking of Catiline's accomplished mistress, he pronounced her too good a dancer for a virtuous woman. 66 p. 22. Ad mitting, however, that both Addison and Sallust are here a little too strict, I must beg leave to add a word or two on the subject of Waltzing; in which even our country-dancing-masters are tolerated in instructing boys and girls, and tolerated by the wives of (among others) respectable clergymen !-Yet, but a very short time since, a waltz at a country-assembly, was condemned as a most abominable indelicacy. It was then a novelty and both young and old were so disgusted at this phallic affair, that once (I well remember) many of them indignantly left the room. The incident was recorded in the provincial prints, with expressions of that sense of decency, which all but minds corrupt or unreflecting must have sincerely approved. This was about fourteen years ago. At the present moment, how changed is the public sentiment! Such is the dreadful effect of a familiarity with vice!--1 do not mean however to preach to my fair readers :--No-1 would refer them to authorities, which, I conceive, they will scarcely dispute-not to dull treatises in ethics or divinity, but to travels, novels, aud romances. I presume, they are no strangers to "the Sorrows of Werter." And do they shrink, in terror, from the rigour of its morality ?-Perhaps, they are not acquainted with "Paris as it was, and as it is."* I will give them an extract from it. "Without assuming the part of a moralist (says the travel * 2 vols. 8vo. 1803. |