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Yet infinitely
more dreadful, as every palatinate in Europe often felt, were the
effects of the two first under the feudal lords than can possibly be
experienced under any system of trade. The virtues and vices of human
nature are the same in every age: they only receive different
modifications, and are dormant, or awakened into action, under different
circumstances. The feudal lord had it infinitely more in his power to be
rapacious than the merchant. And whatever avarice may attend the trader,
his intercourse with the rest of mankind lifts him greatly above that
brutish ferocity which actuates the savage, often the rustic, and in
general characterizes the ignorant part of mankind. The abolition of the
feudal system, a system of absolute slavery, and that equality of
mankind which affords the protection of property, and every other
incitement to industry, are the glorious gifts which the spirit of
commerce, awakened by Prince Henry of Portugal, has bestowed upon Europe
in general; and, as if directed by the manes of his mother, a daughter
of England, upon the British empire in particular. In the vice 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 humanized. The savage breast
is the native soil of revenge; a vice, of all others, peculiarly stamped
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. When
an American Indian is murdered his kindred pursue the murderer; and, as
soon as blood has atoned for blood, the wilds of America hear the
hostile parties join in their mutual lamentations over the dead, 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,
everywhere confessed its virulent 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 unmixed 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 civilized
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 most effectual preventive of
this evil. Where classical literature prevails the manly spirit which it
breathes must be diffused; whenever frivolousness predominates, when
refinement degenerates into whatever enervates the mind, 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 clothes; nor is it necessary to lie on the
ground and feed like the savage to be truly manly. The beggar who,
behind the hedge, divides his offals with his dog has often more of the
real sensualist than he who dines at an elegant table. Nor need we
hesitate to assert, that he who, unable to preserve a manly elegance of
manners, degenerates into the _petit maitre_, would have been, in any
age or condition, equally insignificant and worthless. Some, when they
talk of the debauchery of the present age, seem to think that the former
ages were all innocence. But this is ignorance of human nature. The
debauchery of a barbarous age is gross and brutal; that of a gloomy,
superstitious one, secret, excessive, and murderous; that of a more
polished one, much happier for the fair sex,[30] and certainly in no
sense so big with political unhappiness. If one disease has been
imported from America,[31] the most valuable medicines have likewise
been brought from those regions; and distempers, which were thought
invincible by our forefathers, are now cured.