fheep; and his two friends lead and dreffed it. Achilles himfelf divided the roafted meat among all *.

Not to talk of gold, filver was fcarce in England • during the reign of the third Edward. Rents were paid in kind; and what money they had was locked up in the coffers of the great barons. Pieces of plate were bequeathed even by kings of England, fo trifling in our eftimation, that a gentleman of a moderate fortune would" be ashamed to mention fuch in his will.

We next take under confideration the progress of such manners as are more peculiarly influenced by internal difpofition; preparing the reader by a general view, before entering into particulars. Man is by nature a timid animal, having little ability to fecure himfelf against harm: but he becomes bold in fociety, and gives vent to paffion against his enemies. In the hunter-ftate, the daily practice of flaughtering innocent animals for food, hardens men in cruelty; they are worfe than bears or wolves, being cruel even to their own kind. The calm and fedentary life of a fhepherd tends to foften the harsh manners of hunters; and agriculture, requiring the union of many hands in one operation, inspires a taste for mutual good offices. But here comes in the hoarding appetite to disturb that aufpicious commencement of civilization. Skilful husbandry, producing the neceffaries of life in plenty, paves the way to arts and manufactures. Fine houfes, fplendid gardens, and rich apparel, are desirable objects: the appetite for property becomes headstrong, and to obtain gratification tramples down every obftacle of justice or honour (). Differences 'arife, fomenting difcord and refentment: war is raised, even among thofe of the fame tribe; and while it was lawful for a man to take revenge at his own hand (p), that fierce paffion

* Pope, judging it below the dignity of Achilles to a the butcher, fuppreffes that article, impofing the task upon his two friends. Pope, it would appear, did not confider, that from a lively picture of ancient manners proceeds one of the capital pleasures we have in perufing Homer,

fwallowed up all others. Inequality of rank and fortune foftered diffocial paffions: witnefs pride in particular, which produced a cuftom, once univerfal among barbarians, of killing men, women, dogs, and horfes, for ferving a dead chieftain in the other world. Such complica-, tion of felfish and ftormy paffions, tending eagerly to gratification, and rendering fociety uncomfortable, can- . not be ftemmed by any human means other than wholefome laws: a momentary obftacle inflames defire; but perpetual restraint deadens even the moft fervid paffion. The authority of good government gave vigour to kindly affections; and appetite for fociety, which acts inceffantly, though not violently, gave a currency to mutual good offices. A circumftance concurred to blunt the edge of diffocial paffions: the first focieties were fmall; and small ftates in clofe neighbourhood produce difcord and refentment without end: the junction of niany fuch states into a great kingdom, remove people farther from their enemies, and render them more gentle (q). In that situation, men have leifure and fedatenefs to relish the comforts of focial life: they find that felfish and turbulent paffions are fubverfive of fociety; and through fondness for fociety, they patiently undergo the fevere difcipline of reftraining paffion, and fmoothing manners. Violent paffions that disturb the peace of fociety have fubfided, and are now feldom heard of: humanity is in fashion, and focial affections prevail. Men improve in urbanity by converfing with women; and however selfish at heart, they conciliate favour, by affuming an air of difintereftednefs. Selfifhnefs thus refined becomes an effectual caufe of civilization. But what follows? Turbulent and violent paffions are buried, never again to revive; leaving the mind totally ingroffed by felf-intereft. In the original state of hunters and fifhers, there being little connection among individuals, every man minds his own concerns, and felfithness governs. The difcovery that hunting and fishing are beft carried on in company, promotes fome degree of fociety in that ftate: it gains ground in.

(9) See this more fully handled, book 2. sketch 3.

the fhepherd ftate, and makes a capital figure where huf. bandry and commerce flourish. Private concord is promoted by focial affection; and a nation is profperous in proportion as the amor patriæ prevails. But wealth, acquired whether by conqueft or commerce, is productive of luxury and fenfuality. As thefe increafe, focial affections decline, and at laft vanish. This is visible in every opulent city that has long flourished in extensive commerce. Selfifhnefs becomes the ruling paffion: friendfhip is no more; and even blood-relation is little regarded. Every man ftudies his own intereft; and love of gain and of fenfual pleafure are idols worshipped by all. And thus in the progrefs of manners, men end as they begun: felfifhnefs is no lefs eminent in the laft and most polished state of fociety, than in the first and most favage ftate.

From a general view of the progrefs of manners, we defcend to particulars. And the firft fcene that prefents itself is, cruelty to ftrangers, extended in procefs of time against members of the fame tribe. Anger and refentment are predominant in favages, who never think of fmothering paffion. But this character is not univerfal: fome tribes are remarkable for humanity, as mentioned in the first sketch. Anger and refentment formed the character of our European ancestors, and made them fierce and cruel. The Goths were fo prone to blood, that in their first inroads into the Roman territories, they maffacred man, woman, and child. Procopius reports, that in one of thefe inroads they left Italy thin of inhabitants. They were however an honeft people; and by the polish they received in the civilized parts of Europe, they became no lefs remarkable for humanity, than formerly for cruelty. Totila, their king, having mastered Rome after a long and bloody fiege, permitted not a fingle perfon to be killed in cold blood, nor the chastity of any woman to be attempted. One cannot without horror think of the wanton cruelties exercifed by the Tartars against the nations invaded by them under Gengizcan and Timor Bec.

A Scythian, fays Herodotus, prefents the king with

the heads of the enemies he has killed in battle; and the man who brings not a head, gets no fhare of the plunder. He adds, that many Scythians clothe themfelves with the fkins of men, and make ufe of the fculls of their enemies to drink out of. Diodorus Siculus reports of the Gauls, that they carry home the heads of their enemies flain in battle and after embalming them, depofit them in chefts as their chief trophy; bragging of the fums offered for these heads by the friends of the deceased, and refufed. In fimilar circumftances men are the fame all the world over. The fcalping of enemies, in daily use among the North-American favages, is equally cruel and barbarous.

No favages are more cruel than the Greeks and Trojans were, as described by Homer; men butchered in cold blood, towns reduced to afhes, fovereigns expofed to the most humbling indignities, no refpect paid to age nor to fex. The young Adraftus (r), thrown from his car, and lying on his face in the duft, obtained quarter from Menelaus. Agamemnon upbraided his brother for lenity: "Let none from deftruction escape, not even the lifping infant in the mother's arms: all her fons must "with Ilium fall, and on her ruins unburied remain." He pierced the fupplicant with his fpear; and fetting his foot on the body, pulled it out. Hector, having stripped Patroclus of his arms, drags the flain along, vowing to lop the head from the trunk, and to give the mangled corfe a prey to the dogs of Troy. And the feventeenth book of the Iliad is wholly employed in defcribing the conteft about the body between the Greeks and Trojans. Befide the brutality of preventing the laft duties from being performed to a dead friend, it is a low fcene, unworthy of heroes. It was equally brutal in Achilles to drag the corfe of Hector to the fhips, tied to his car. In a

fcene between Hector and Andromache (s), the treatment of vanquished enemies is pathetically described; fovereigns maffacred, and their bodies left a prey to dogs and vultures; fucking infants dashed against the pave(r) Book 6. of the Iliad.

(s) Iliad, book 6.

ment; ladies of the first rank forced to perform the loweft acts of flavery. Hector doth not diffemble, that if Troy were conquered, his poor wife would be condemned to draw water like the vileft flave. Hecuba, in Euripides, laments, that she was chained like a dog at Agamemnon's gate; and the fame favage manners are defcribed in many other Greek tragedies. Prometheus makes free with the heavenly fire, in order to give life to man. As a punishment for bringing rational creatures into existence, the gods decree, that he be chained to a rock, and abandoned to birds of prey. Vulcan is introduced by Efchylus rattling the chain, nailing one end to a rock, and the other to the breaft-bone of the criminal. Who but an American savage can at prefent behold fuch a spectacle and not be shocked at it? A fcene reprefenting a woman murdered by her children, would be hiffed by every modern audience; and yet that horrid fcene was reprefented with applause in the Electra of Sophocles. Stobaeus reports a faying of Menander, that even the gods cannot infpire a foldier with civility: no wonder that the Greek foldiers were brutes and barbarians, when war was waged, not only against the state, but against every individual. At prefent, humanity prevails among foldiers as among others; because we make war only a gainst a ftate, not against individuals. The Greeks are the lefs excufable for their cruelty, as they appear to have been fenfible that humanity is a cardinal virtue. Barbarians are always painted by Homer as cruel; polifhed nations as tender and compassionate :

Ye gods! (he cry'd) upon what barren coaft, "In what new regions is Ulyffes tofs'd;

Poffefs'd by wild barbarians fierce in arms, "Or men whose bofom tender pity warms?"

ODYSSEY, book 13. 241.

Cruelty is inconfiftent with true heroifm; and accordingly very little of the latter is difcoverable in any of Homer's warriors. So much did they retain of the favage character, as, even without blushing, to fly from an enemy fuperior in bodily ftrength. Diomedes, who