in Ethics, is sometimes used to denote humility; and sometimes to express chastity, or purity of sentiments and manners.—Modesty, in this last sense, and as particularly applied to women, is defined by the authors of the Encyclopédie Methodique, as a natural, chary, and honest shame; a secret fear; a feeling on account of what may be accompanied with disgrace. Women who possess only the remains of a culpable modesty, make but feeble efforts to resist: those who have obliterated every trace of modesty from their countenance, soon extinguish it completely in their soul, and throw aside for ever the veil of decency. She, on the contrary, who truly possesses modesty, passes over in silence attempts against her honour, and forbears speaking of those from whom she has received an outrage, when in doing so she must reveal actions and expressions that might give alarm to virtue.

The idea of modesty is not a chimera, a popular prejudice, or an illusion arising from laws and education. Nature, which speaks the same language to all men, has, with the unanimous consent of nations, annexed contempt to female incontinence. To resist and to attack are laws of her appointment: and while the befores desires on both parties, they are in the one accompanied with boldness, in the other with shame. To individuals she has allotted long spaces of time for the purposes of self-preservation, and but moments for the propagation of their species. What arms more gentle than Modesty could she have put into the hands of that sex which she designed to make resolute.

If it were the custom for both sexes to make and receive advances indiscriminately, vain importunity would not be prevented: the fire of passion would never be stilled up, but languished in tedious liberty; the most amiable of all feelings would scarcely warm the human breast; its object would with difficulty be attained. That obstacle which seems to remove this ob-

in fact brings it nearer. The veil of shame only makes the desires more attractive. Modesty kindles that flame which it endeavours to suppress: its fears, its evasions, its caution, its timid avowals, its pleasing and affecting finesses, speak more plainly what it wishes to conceal, than passion can do without it: it is MODESTY, in short, which enhances the value of a favour, and mitigates the pain of a refusal.

Since modesty is the secret fear of ignominy; and since all nations, ancient or modern, have confessed the obligation of its laws; it must be absurd to violate them in the punishment of crimes, which should always have for its object the re-establishment of order. Was it the intention of those oriental nations, who exposed women to elephants, trained for an abominable species of punishment, to violate one law by the observance of another? By an ancient practice among the Romans a girl could not be put to death before she was marriageable. Tiberius found means to evade this law, by ordering them to be violated by the executioner previous to the infliction of punishment; the refinement of a cruel tyrant, who sacrificed the morals to the customs of his people! When the legislature of Japan caused women to be exposed naked in the market places, and obliged them to walk on all fours like brutes, modesty was shocked: but when it wanted to force a mother—when it wanted to compel a son—nature received an outrage.

Such is the influence of climate in other countries, that the physical part of love possesses an almost irresistible force. The resistance is feeble; the attack is accompanied with a certainty of success. This is the case at Patana, at Bantam, and in the small kingdoms on the coast of Guinea. When the women in these countries (says Mr Smith) meet with a man, they lay hold of him and threaten to inform their husbands if he despises their favours. But here the sexes seem to have abolished the laws peculiar to each. It is fortunate to live in a temperate climate like ours, where that sex which possesses the most powerful charms exerts them to embellish society; and where modest women, while they reserve themselves for the pleasures of one, contribute to the amusement of all.