the intrigues or escape of a
defenceless woman. At home, the sex are covered with gauze veils, which
they dare not take off in the presence of any man, except their husband,
or some near relation. Over the greatest part of Asia, and some parts of
Africa, women are guarded by eunuchs, made incapable of violating their
chastity. In Spain, where the natives are the descendants of the
Africans, and whose jealousy is not less strong than that of their
ancestors, they, for many centuries, made use of padlocks to secure the
chastity of their women; but finding these ineffectual, they frequently
had recourse to old women, called Gouvernantes. It had been discovered,
that men deprived of their virility, did not guard female virtue so
strictly, as to be incapable of being bribed to allow another a taste of
those pleasures they themselves were incapable of enjoying. The
Spaniards, sensible of this, imagined, that vindictive old women were
more likely to be incorruptible; as envy would stimulate them to prevent
the young from enjoying those pleasures, which they themselves had no
longer any chance for; but all powerful gold soon overcame even this
obstacle; and the Spaniards, at present, seem to give up all restrictive
methods, and to trust the virtue of their women to good principles,
instead of rigor and hard usage.

CUSTOM OF THE MUSCOVITES.

If the laws forbidding the marriage of near relations with each other,
originated from the political view of preserving the human race from
degeneracy, they are the only laws we meet with on that subject, and
exert almost the only care we find taken of so important a matter. The
Asiatic is careful to improve the breed of his elephants, the Arabian of
his horses, and the Laplander of his reindeer. The Englishman, eager to
have swift horses, staunch dogs, and victorious cocks, grudges no care
and spares no expense, to have the males and females matched properly;
but since the days of Solon, where is the legislator, or since the days
of the ancient Greeks, where are the private persons who take any care
to improve, or even to keep from degeneracy the breed of their own
species? The Englishman who solicitously attends the training of his
colts and puppies, would be ashamed to be caught in the nursery; and
while no motive could prevail upon him to breed horses or hounds from an
improper or contaminated kind, he will calmly, or rather
inconsiderately, match himself with the most decrepid or d