\ 
On Learning and the Arts. 449 
even secreted from the open face of day; they 
were not admitted to the councils of man, to an 
equal participation of the hopes and fears, the 
joys and sorrows of the lordly male. This, 
whether it were to the honour or reproach, whe- 
ther it were the blessing or misfortune, of antient 
days, was assuredly the character of antient na- 
tions, though with some difference of degree ; ‘it 
was that of the Asiatics, of the Greeks and 
Romans, and continues at this day to be the 
unvaried character of the eastern world., To 
the rough inhabitants of northern Europe, bar= 
barians as history affects to call them, but who 
‘were our progenitors, the female sex are primarily 
indebted for their vindication to the equal dignity 
and privileges of human nature. To this singular 
character of these northern nations, long un- 
known to the rest of the world, Czsarand’Tacitus 
have born testimony, while they were confined 
to their native land. The romantic gallantry of 
the days of chivalry, and the romanzas_ of ‘the 
succeeding period, in which it is.difficult to de- 
cide whether superstition, heroic,.courage, or 
idolatry of the sex, be the predominant feature, 
and the gradual passing of the old romance into 
the modern novel, all demonstrate. that this 
character has never been parted-with, but been — 
mellowed into the more rational and, tempered 
gallantry of the present day, such as we their 
