wife, yet she thought herself too good to be his concubine; and would therefore remain in the humble situation to which Providence had reduced her. This opposition served but the more to enslave the passions of the young monarch, and heighten his esteem for such exalted sentiments; he therefore offered to share his throne, as well as his heart, with the woman whose personal and mental accomplishments rendered her so deserving of both. The nuptials were accordingly solemnized at Grafton, Ann. Dom. 1465.

RAPIN.

LUCRETIA was a lady of great beauty and noble extraction: she married Collatinus, a relation of Tarquinius Superbus, king of Rome. During the siege of Ardea, which lasted much longer than was expected, the young princes passed their time in entertainments and diversions. One day as they were at supper,* at Sextus Tarquin's the eldest son, with Collatinus, Lucretia's husband, the conversation turned on the merit of their wives: every one gave his own the preference.

:

The Romans properly speaking, made but one meal this was supper. About the middle of the day they took something to refresh themselves, and enable them to stay for their evening's meal. Pransus non avide, says Horace, quantum interpellat imam ventre diem durare, lib. i. sat. 9. But this slight dinner cannot be called a meal, no more than the nuncheon, or collation, which only children ate. The supper-hour was the ninth and tenth of the day, i. e. two or three hours before sun set. Till then they applied themselves to serious affairs; but afterwards they dismissed all care, and were at leisure to converse with their friends. To anticipate the supper-hour, and to sit down to table before this time, Horace calls, Diem frangere---Partem solido demere de die; to abridge the day, to cut off and retrench part of it. They also said, to express the same thing, epulari de die. To sit down so early at table carried with it an air of debauch, which sober people avoided. ROLLIN'S Rom. vol. v. p. 390.

"What signify so many words ?" says Collatinus; "you may in a few hours, if you please, be convinced by your own eyes, how much my Lucretia excels the rest. We are young: let us mount our horses, and go and surprise them. Nothing can better decide our dispute than the state we shall find them in at a time when, most certainly, they will not expect us." They were a little warmed with wine: "Come on, let us go," they all cried together. They quickly gallopped to Rome, which was about twenty miles from Ardea, where they found the princesses, wives of the young Tarquins, surrounded with company, and every circumstance of the highest mirth and pleasure. From thence they rode to Collatia, where they saw Lucretia in a very different situation. With her maids about her, she was at work in the inner part of her house, talking on the dangers to which her husband was exposed. The victory was adjudged to her unanimously. She received her guests with all possible politeness and civility. Lucretia's virtue, which should have commanded respect, was the very thing which kindled in the breast of Sextus Tarquin a strong and detestable passion. Within a few days he returned to Collatia, and upon the plausible excuse he made for his visit, he was received with all the politeness due to a near relation, and the eldest son of a king. Watching the fittest opportunity, he declared the passion she had excited at his last visit, and employed the most tender entreaties, and all the artifices possible to touch a woman's heart; but all to no purpose. He then endeavoured to extort her compliance by the most terrible threatenings. It was in vain. She still persisted in her resolution; nor could she be moved, even by the fear of death. But, when the monster told her that he would first dispatch her, and then having murdered a slave, would lay him by her side, after which he would spread a report, that having caught them in the act of adultery, he had punished them as they de served; this seemed to shake her resolution. She hesitated, not knowing which of these dreadful alternatives to take, whether, by consenting to dishonour the bed of her husband, whom she tenderly loved; or, by refusing, to die under the odious character of having prostituted her person to the lust of a slave. He saw

the struggle of her soul; and seizing the unlucky moment, obtained an inglorious conquest. Thus Lucretia's virtue, which had been proof against the fear of death, could not hold out against the fear of infamy. The young prince, having gratified his passion, returned home as in triumph.

On the morrow, Lucretia, overwhelmed with grief and despair, sent early in the morning to desire her father and her husband to come to her, and bring, with them each a trusty friend, assuring them there was no time to lose. They came with all speed, the one ac companied with Valerius, (so famous after under the fame of Publicola) and the other with Brutus. The moment she saw them come, she could not command her tears; and when her husband asked her if all was well; "By no means," said she, it cannot be well with a woman after she has lost her honour. Yes, Collatinus, thy bed has been defiled by a stranger, but my body only is polluted: my mind is innocent, as my death shall witness. Promise me only, not to suffer the adulterer to go unpunished: it is Sextus Tarquinius, who last night, treacherous guest, or rather cruel foe, offered me violence, and reaped a joy fatal to me; but, if you are men, it will be still more fatal to him." All promised to revenge her: and, at the same time, tried to comfort her with representing, "That the mind only sins, not the body; and where the consent is wanting, there can be no guilt." "What Sextus deserves," replies Lucretia, "I leave you to judge; but for me, though I declare myself innocent of the crime, I exempt not myself from punishment. No immodest woman shall plead Lucretia's example to outlive her dishonour.” Thus saying, she plunged into her breast a dagger she had concealed under her robe, and expired at their feet.

Lucretia's tragical death has been praised and extolled by Pagan writers, as the highest and most poble act of heroism. The gospel thinks not so it is murder, even according to Lucretia's own principles, since she punished with death an innocent person, at least acknowledged as such by herself. She was ignorant that our life is not in our own power, but in his disposal from whom we receive it.

St. Austin, who carefully examines, in his book De civitate Dei,* what we are to think of Lucretia's death, considers it not as a courageous action, flowing from a true love of chastity, but as an infirmity of a woman too sensible of worldly fame and glory; and who, from a dread of appearing in the eyes of men an accomplice of the violence she abhorred, and of a crime to which she was entirely a stranger, commits a real crime upon herself voluntarily and designedly. But what cannot be sufficiently admired in this Roman lady is her abhorrence of adultery, which she seems to hold so detestable as not to bear the thoughts of it. In this sense, she is a noble example for all her sex.

Liv. 1. 1. c. 56.-60. DIONYS. 1. iv. p. 261.-277. FLOR. 1. 3. 9.

A PERSON of birth and fortune, struck with the beauty of a Lacedemonian lady, sent her a letter, entreating the last favour; to which she returned the following answer:

"When I was a child, I acted in obedience to my parents, and I was very punctual in it since I became a wife, I have been equally obedient to my husband; and therefore, if you want my consent to a dishonest action, first propose the matter to him.”

CHIOMARA, the wife of Ortiagon, a Gaulish prince, was equally admirable for her beauty and chastity. During the war between the Romans and the Gauls, A. R. 563, the latter were totally defeated on Mount Olympus. Chiomara, among many other ladies, was taker prisoner, and committed to the care of a centurion, no less passionate for money than women. at first, endeavoured to gain her consent to his infamous desires; but not being able to prevail upon her, and subvert her constancy, he thought he might employ force with a woman whom misfortune had reduced

He,

* Non est pudicitiæ caritas, sed pudoris infirmitas. Romana mulier laudis avida, nimium verita est, ne putaretur, quod violenter est passa cum viverit, libenter passa si viveret. L. i. c. 19.

to slavery. Afterwards, to make her amends for that treatment, he offered to restore her liberty; but not without ransom.. He agreed with her for a certain sum, and to conceal this design from the other Romans, he permitted her to send any of the prisoners she should choose to her relations, and assigned a place near the river where the lady should be exchanged for gold. By accident, there was one of her own slaves amongst the prisoners. Upon him she fixed; and the centurion soon after carried her beyond the advanced posts, under cover of a dark night. The next evening two of the relations of the princess came to the place appointed, whither the centurion also carried his captive. When they had delivered him the Attic talent they had brought, which was the sum they had agreed on, the lady, in her own language, ordered those who came to receive her to draw their swords and kill the centurion, who was then amusing himself with weighing the gold. Then, charmed with having revenged the injury done her chastity, she took the head of the officer, which she had cut off with her own hands, and hiding it under her robe, went to her husband Ortiagon, who had returned home after the defeat of his troops. As soon as she came into his presence, she threw the centurion's head at his feet. He was strangely surprised at such a sight; and asked her whose head it was, and what had induced her to do an act so uncommon to her sex? With a face covered with a sudden blush, and at the same time expressing her fierce indignation, she declared the outrage which had been done her, and the revenge she had taken for it.

During the rest of her life, she stedfastly retained the same attachment for the purity of manners which constitutes the principal glory of the sex, and nobly sustained the honour of so glorious, bold, and heroic

an action.

This lady was much more prudent than Lucretia, in revenging her injured honour by the death of her ravisher, rather than by her own. Plutarch relates this fact, in his treatise upon the virtue and great actions of women; and it is from him we have the name of this, which is well worthy of being transmitted to posterity.