Yet several ages of antiquity have transmitted accounts of the Amazons
of Caucasus; and of the Amazons of America, who have given their name to
the greatest river in the world, Condamine lately found such memorials,
as can be expected among erratick and unlettered nations, where events
are recorded only by tradition, and new settling in the country from
time to time, confuse and efface all traces of former times.
To die with husbands, or to live without them, are the two extremes
which the prudence and moderation of European ladies have, in all ages,
equally declined; they have never been allured to death by the kindness
or civility of the politest nations, nor has the roughness and brutality
of more savage countries ever provoked them to doom their male
associates to irrevocable banishment. The Bohemian matrons are said to
have made one short struggle for superiority; but, instead of banishing
the men, they contented themselves with condemning them to servile
offices; and their constitution, thus left imperfect, was quickly
overthrown.
There is, I think, no class of English women from whom we are in any
danger of Amazonian usurpation.
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