Had the Saracens been masters of Europe the lot of womankind would have been but indifferent, for it is a very remarkable circumstance that all the institutions in Southern countries are very degrading to the sex. Morally and physically we are treated as beings of an inferior class, and though it is not quite demonstrable that we are supposed to be without a claim to immortality of soul, yet the reward is but trivial, and we are excluded the Paradise of men. On the contrary, the natives of the North hold even the feminine gender in respect, so great is their veneration for us: they fought with us by their sides as tutelary angels, and submitted to the government of a female chief. They called the Sun the greatest luminary, to honour it with a feminine name, and the moon, which is inferior, by a masculine one. This spirit melted into chivalry, and it is to the _preux chevaliers_, the Arthurs, the Orlandos, and the Round Table, that we owe our present situation in society. However, the Saracens were a great and enlightened people, and till lately literature and science have never fairly been grateful for what they owe them, and half the world to this day even confound them with those savages, the Turks. It is true that at first they fought with the sword in one hand and the Alkoran in the other, but once conquerors they cultivated the milder virtues. Where is there a better government than that under the Caliphs in Spain? The University of Granada educated our first _literati_, Friar Bacon, etc. It would be endless to enter into their merits: Andrès,[169] a Spanish Jesuit who lives at Mantua, has written an excellent book in Italian about them. [Sidenote: HER EDUCATION] I have had so strange an education, that if I speak freely upon sacred subjects it is not from an affectation of being an _esprit fort_, but positively because I have no prejudices to combat with. My principles were of my own finding, both religious and moral, for I never was instructed in abstract or practical religion, and as soon as I could think at all chance directed my studies; for though both my parents were as good and as virtuous people as ever breathed, and I was always an only child, yet I was entirely left, not from system, but from fondness and inactivity, to follow my own bent. Happily for me I devoured books, and a desire for information became my ruling passion. The experiment of leaving a child without guidance or advice is a dangerous one, and ought never to be done; for if parents will not educate it themselves they should seek for those that will; but I do not complain, as perhaps all is for the best in this instance, though I should be _bien autre chose_ if I had been regularly taught. I never had any method in my pursuits, and I was always too greedy to follow a thing with any _suite_. Till lately I did not know the common principles of grammar, and still a boy of ten years old would outdo me.