292 Love, Law, and Physic in Barbary. [SEPT. 



fires of such accomplished persons. They had fairly " trod on the heels" 

 of my superiority, as the professors of the new art of marching so muni- 

 ficently promise ; and as the next tread might be on my escrutoire, or 

 my neck, I made up my mind to relieve them of the pain of attendance 

 on a being so much less intellectual than themselves. In the course of 

 the next three hours I sent off every sage and syren of them all. There 

 was a considerable reluctance on their part, for which I could not account 

 at the time, but which gave way on my using the argument of a constable 

 from the next office. At eleven o'clock I retired to my pillow, proud of 

 my day's work. But it was unhappily not to sleep. I was suddenly 

 startled by a succession of thunderings at my door, which left me only 

 the choice of suppositions, that the house was on fire, or was attacked 

 by robbers, or was partaking of a general earthquake. I ran to the 

 window saw successive arrivals of sedans, hackney coaches, and 

 gentlemen wrapped in magnificent military cloaks. The problem was 

 slowly, but perfectly solved. My servants had invited all their fellow 

 students at the Professor of Dancing's Institute, to a quadrille party. 

 The invitation was a month old ; but unluckily, my movements in dis- 

 missal had been too rapid for them to " put off" their guests. This 

 however must now be done ; and I gave them some invaluable advice 

 from the safe distance of a second-floor window : not unanswered, I 

 must allow, by some indignant spirits, in language worthy of their 

 injuries, and in particular by one gentleman's gentleman, who acquainted 

 me that but for his despising me, he should send a friend to insist 

 " on satisfaction/' SENEX. 



LOVE, LAW, AND PHYSIC, IN BARBARY. 

 (From the recent unpublished Journal of S. Benson, Esq.) 



THE greatest and most visible distinction between Europe and that 

 part of Africa opposite its coast, consists in the consideration attached 

 to the fair sex, a distinction which the stranger who first sets foot in 

 Barbary, whilst yet within sight of the civilized world, can scarcely 

 comprehend. Had he passed through the dead waters of Lethe, the 

 change could not astonish him more than this slight removal from his 

 home, and did not the sun here shed its rays on him who saw it 

 rise in Europe, he might fancy he had passed into the fabled regions 

 of another sphere. The beauty of the women of this country (the 

 chosen few) and their hapless condition, is such as to merit our 

 sincerest pity. The charms which Nature has bestowed on them, 

 instead of elevating them to that rank in society which they deserve, 

 has only marked them out for the victims of the jealous tyranny 

 of husbands, whose selfishness and obstinacy axe such that nothing can 

 make them feel or think the sex otherwise destined, than to be sub- 

 servient to their will and pleasure. It is to jealousy, that may be 

 ascribed the miserable life which the Mahommedan women of Barbary 

 lead ; this is the cause of the ignorance in which they are kept, the 

 masks in which they are hid, and the cages in which they are confined. 

 When I turn from the heart-broken heroine of a modern novel, dying 

 like the Sybarite of a crumpled rose-leaf, to these children of sorrow 

 and slavery, I deplore the vitiated taste which loves to feed on such 

 luscious falsehood ; on the shores of Africa may be found sufficient 

 cause in nature to excite our sympathy and regret. 



