a plurality of wives or husbands in the possession of one man or woman at the same time. Polygamy has found favour in Asia from time immemorial, and the Mohammedans adopted and confirmed it. Montesquieu holds that it is owing to the greater number of female births in the East; but this is by no means proved. Another more plausible reason may be found in the premature old age of the female sex in these countries. Niebuhr, in his Travels in Arabia, gives a curious piece of conversation which he had with an Arab on polygamy. Selden, in his Uxor Hebraica, has shown that a plurality of wives was allowed among the Hebrews. It has to be noticed, however, that polygamy was not countenanced by the Greeks or Romans. It is remarked by Tacitus in his Germania, that the Germans "alone, among all the barbarians, are content with a single wife." Bernardus Ochimus, general of the Order of the Capuchins, and afterwards a Protestant, published, about the middle of the sixteenth century, Dialogues in favour of Polygamy, which were replied to by Beza. About the close of the seventeenth century an artful treatise on polygamy was published at London by John Lysar, under the title Polygamia Triumphatrix, and assigned to "Theophilus Alethius," which has been replied to by several writers. Bruce has introduced the argument, that in some parts of the world the proportion of female children is much superior to that of the male; and the Rev. W. Madan, in his Thelyphthora, has come forward more boldly in favour of polygamy than any other modern writer. In Christianity, polygamy receives no countenance; and in Christian countries it has been long since forbidden.