The Greek females led exceedingly retired lives, being far more charily admitted to a share of the recreations of the nobler sex than we of these privileged days. The ancient Greeks were very magnificent--very: magnificent senators, magnificent warriors, magnificent men; but they were a people trained from the cradle for exhibition and publicity; domestic life was quite cast into the shade. Consequently and necessarily their women were thrown to greater distance, till it happened, naturally enough, that they seemed to form a distinct community; and apartments the most distant and secluded that the mansion afforded were usually assigned to them. Of these, in large establishments, certain ones were always appropriated to the labours of the needle. "Je ne dirai" (says the sarcastic author of Anacharsis) "qu'un mot sur l'education des filles. Suivant la difference des etats, elles apprennent a lire, ecrire, coudre, filer, preparer la laine dont on fait les vetemens, et veiller aux soins du menage. En general, les meres exhortent leurs filles a se conduire avec sagesse; mais elles insistent beaucoup plus sur la necessite de se tenir droites, d'effacer leurs epaules, de serrer leur sein avec un large ruban, d'etre extremement sobres, et de prevenir, par toutes sortes de moyens, un embonpoint qui nuirait a l'elegance de la taille et a la grace des mouvemens." Homer, the great fountain of ancient lore, scarcely throughout his whole work names a female, Greek or Trojan, but as connected naturally and indissolubly with this feminine occupation--needlework. Thus, when Chryses implores permission to ransome his daughter, Agamemnon wrathfully replies-- "I will not loose thy daughter, till old age Find her far distant from her native soil, Beneath my roof in Argos, at her task Of tissue-work." And Iris, the "ambassadress of Heaven," finds Helen in her own recess-- "----weaving there a gorgeous web, Inwrought with fiery conflicts, for her sake Wag'd by contending nations." Hector foreseeing the miseries consequent upon the destruction of Troy, says to Andromache-- "But no grief So moves me as my grief for thee alone, Doom'd then to follow some imperious Greek, A weeping captive, to the distant shores Of Argos; there to labour at the loom For a taskmistress." And again he says to her-- "Hence, then, to our abode; there weave or spin, And task thy maidens." And afterwards-- "Andromache, the while, Knew nought, nor even by report had learn'd Her Hector's absence in the field alone. She in her chamber at the palace-top A splendid texture wrought, on either side All dazzling bright with flow'rs of various hues." Though "Penelope's web" is become a proverb, it would be unpardonable here to omit specific mention of it. Antinoues thus complains of her:--