The Greeks, who, in their public institutions and their literary tastes, were diametrically opposed to the oriental nations, bore a considerable resemblance to those nations in their domestic habits.

Like them, they despised the intellects and immured the persons of their women; and it was among the least of the frightful evils to which this pernicious system gave birth, that all the accomplishments of mind, and all the fascinations of manner, which, in a highly cultivated age, will generally be necessary to attach men to their female associates, were monopolised by the Phrynes and the Lamais.

The indispensable ingredients of honourable and chivalrous love were nowhere to be found united.

The matrons and their daughters confined in the harem,--insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all but the mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married,--could rarely excite interest; afterwards their brilliant rivals, half Graces, half Harpies, elegant and informed, but fickle and rapacious, could never inspire respect.
The state of society in Rome was, in this point, far happier; and the Latin literature partook of the superiority.

The Roman poets have decidedly surpassed those of Greece in the delineation of the passion of love.