[Footnote: Liv., lib. 28. c. 21.] The
Germans, even in their native forests, paid a kind of devotion to the
female sex. The Christian religion enjoined meekness and compassion to
barbarous ages. These different principles combined together, may have
served as the foundation of a system, in which courage was directed by
religion and love, and the warlike and gentle were united together. When
the characters of the hero and the saint were mixed, the mild spirit of
Christianity, though often turned into venom by the bigotry of opposite
parties, though it could not always subdue the ferocity of the warrior, nor
suppress the admiration of courage and force, may have confirmed the
apprehensions of men in what was to be held meritorious and splendid in the
conduct of their quarrels.
In the early and traditionary history of the Greeks and the Romans, rapes
were assigned as the most frequent occasions of war; and the sexes were, no
doubt, at all times, equally important to each other. The enthusiasm of
love is most powerful in the neighbourhood of Asia and Africa; and beauty,
as a possession, was probably more valued by the countrymen of Homer, than
it was by those of Amadis de Gaul, or by the authors of modern gallantry.
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