Plat. de Legg. t. viii. p. 36.—Among the Thracians, and many other people, women were employed in agriculture, as they are in England and France, as herdswomen and shepherds, and every other laborious employment, like men.—Id. ib. ----- Xenophon, in that interesting work, the Œconomics, introduces an Athenian gentleman laying open to Socrates the internal regulations of his family. In this picture, the wife occupies an important position in the foreground. She is, indeed, the principal figure around which the various circumstances of the composition are grouped with infinite delicacy and effect. Young and beautiful she comes forth hesitating and blushing at being detected in some slight economical blunders. The husband takes her by the hand; they converse in our presence, and while the interior arrangements of a Greek house are unreservedly laid open, we discover the exact footing on which husband and wife lived at Athens, and a state of more complete confidence, of greater mutual affection, of more considerate tenderness on the one side, or feminine reliance and love on the other, it would be difficult to conceive. Ischomachos, I admit, is to be regarded as a favourable specimen; he unites in his character the qualities of an enterprising and enlightened country gentleman, with those of a politician and orator of no mean order, and his probity as a citizen infuses an air of mingled grandeur and sweetness into his domestic manners. Describing a conversation which, soon after their marriage, took place between him and his youthful wife, he observes:—“When we had together taken a view of our possessions I remarked to her that, without her constant care and superintendence, nothing of all she had seen would greatly profit us. And taking my illustration from the science of politics, I showed that, in well-regulated states, it is not deemed sufficient that good laws are enacted, but that proper persons are chosen to be guardians of those laws, who not only reward with praise such as yield them due obedience, but visit also their infraction with punishment. Now, my love,” said I, “you must consider yourself the guardian of our domestic commonwealth, and dispose of all its resources as the commander of a garrison disposes of the soldiers under his orders. With you it entirely rests to determine respecting the conduct of every individual in the household, and, like a queen, to bestow praise and reward on the dutiful and obedient, while you keep in check the refractory by punishment and reproof. Nor should this high charge appear burdensome to you; for though the duties of your station may seem to involve deeper solicitude and necessity for greater exertion than we require even from a domestic, these greater cares are rewarded by greater enjoyments; since, whatever ability they may display in the improving or protecting of their master’s property, the measure of their advantages still depends upon