e resigned that attractive softness, in which
principally consist the charm and weakness of woman. Conscious pride
taught the German females to suppress every tender emotion that stood
in competition with honor, and the first honor of the sex has ever been
that of chastity. The sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited
matrons may, at once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a
proof of the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a faint
and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that distinguishes the age or
country in which it may be found.

[Footnote 57: Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of places
the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the theatre as the
best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and to melt them into
tenderness and sensuality,]

[Footnote 58: Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]

[Footnote 59: The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses, and
arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the subject.]

[Footnote 60: The change of exigere into exugere is a most excellent
correction.]

[Footnote 61: Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the wives of
the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children, they had offered
to surrender, on condition that they should be received as the slaves
of the vestal virgins.]

The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of savages can
deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their
ignorance. [62] They adored the great visible objects and agents of
nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Earth; together with
those imaginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most
important occupations of human life. They were persuaded, that, by some
ridiculous arts of divination, they could discover the will of the
superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and
acceptable offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily
bestowed on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the
Deity, whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor
represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the Germans
were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted with the art of
sculpture, we shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which
arose not so much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of
ingenuity. The only te