Page:The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India.djvu/35

 of effeminacy alone, perhaps, do we exceed our ancestors; yet, even here we have infinitely the advantage over them. The brutal ferocity of former ages is now lost, and the general mind is humanised. The savage breast is the native soil of revenge; a vice, of all others, ingratitude excepted, peculiarly stampt with the character of hell. But the mention of this was reserved for the character of the savages of Europe. The savage of every country is implacable when injured, but among some, revenge has its measure. The wilds of America hear the hostile parties join in their mutual lamentations over the murdered, and whom, as an oblivion of malice, they bury together. But the measure of revenge, never to be full, was left for the demi-savages of Europe. The vassals of the feudal Lord entered into his quarrels with the most inexorable rage. Just or unjust was no consideration of theirs. It was a family feud; no farther inquiry was made; and from age to age, the parties, who never injured each other, breathed nothing but mutual rancour and revenge. And actions, suitable to this horrid spirit, every where confessed its violent influence. Such were the late days of Europe, admired by the ignorant for the innocence of manners. Resentment of injury indeed is natural; and there is a degree which is honest, and though warm, far from inhuman. But if it is the hard task of humanized virtue to preserve the feeling of an injury unmixt with the slightest criminal wish of revenge, how impossible is it for the savage, to attain the dignity of forgiveness, the greatest ornament of human nature. As in individuals, a virtue will rise into a vice, generosity into blind profusion, and even mercy into criminal lenity, so civilised manners will lead the opulent into effeminacy. But let it be considered, this consequence is by no means the certain result of civilization. Civilization, on the contrary, provides the certain preventive of this evil. When refinement degenerates into whatever enervates the mind, whenever frivolousness predominates, literary ignorance is sure to complete the effeminate character. A mediocrity of virtues and of talents is the lot of the great majority of mankind; and even this mediocrity, if cultivated by a liberal education, will infallibly secure its possessor against those excesses of effeminacy which are really culpable. To be of plain manners it is not necessary to be a clown, or to wear coarse cloathsclothes [sic]; nor is it necessary to