If we regard the times in reference only to their baronial and feudal features, the view is deeply dyed with turpitude, and the romances, whence the denunciations against the ladies of forepast ages have been drawn, are not sparing in their pictures of licentiousness. But chivalry was the golden thread that ran through the middle ages, the corrective of vice, the personification of virtue. That it did not altogether succeed in colouring with its brightness the surrounding gloom is sufficiently true, and the times warranted the assertion of a character in Amadis de Gaul, that our country yields, as others do, both good and bad. The romances present us with instances of the profligacy of women, and so they also do of the baseness of knights: but as no one will contend that chivalry did not in general inspire its professors with sentiments of honour, so its virtuous influence cannot in fairness be denied to the maidens of its age. Let us not, as Spenser says, blame the whole sex for the fault of one. "Fair ladies that to love captived are And chaste desires do nourish in your mind, Let not her fault your sweet affections mar; Ne blot the bounty of all womankind, 'Mongst thousands good, one wanton dame to find: Amongst the roses grow some wicked weeds: For this was not to love, but lust, inclin'd; For love doth always bring forth bounteous deeds, And in each gentle heart desire of honour breeds."[255] The romance writers were satirists, but they had more humour than malignity. Every one of them introduces a magical test of feminine virtue, a drinking cup, a mantle or a girdle. This is harmless; and their general censure of women is without point; for they were for the most part men of profligate habits, and judged the other sex by the standard of their own vices. "Safe her, I never any woman found That chastity did for itself embrace But were for other causes firm and sound; Either for want of handsome time and place, Or else for fear of shame and foul disgrace."[256] This is the burthen of all their declamations against women; and Spenser has shewn how little credit he gave to it, for he does not let it proceed from the mouth of any of his preux chevaliers, but from a wretched profligate, misnamed the squire of dames.[257]