2IO 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



was the fineft thing that Horace could devife to fay to Aiiguftus, 

 when he was defcribing the pleafure the people of Rome had in fee- 

 ing him, after a long abfence ; 



Gratior it dies. 



Etfoles melius nitefit *. 



They ufe a like figure to exprefs grief. I know an officer in his 

 Majefty's army, to whom an old Indian faid, who had loft his fon 

 in battle twenty years before, * That, during all that time, the fun 



* had never fhone bright.' 



Monfieur Roubaud concluded their charader, by faying, ' That 



* they had every virtue belonging to human nature, and no vice, 



* except what they had learned from us Europeans.' — The chief of 

 thefe vices is drunkennefs ; for, though they are fuperior to all toil 

 and pain and even to death itfelf, they cannot refift the tempta- 

 tion of fpiritcus liquors ; fo true is the antient obfervation, that the 

 allurements of pleafure are more dangerous to virtue, than the ter- 

 ror of pain. Whatever murders and other crimes they commit, 

 are all owing to the violent intoxication of thefe liquors, much 

 more violent, efpecially when operating upon fuch ftrong bodies 

 as theirs, than any intoxication with wine or beer : And they fay, I 

 think, not improperly, that it is the rum which commits thofe 

 crimes, not they. 



As to their cruelty to their prifoners : In the firft place, as they do 

 not make flaves of them, according to the cuftom of theantients, not 

 having fuch plenty of provifions as to maintain both them and them- 

 fclves, it is necelTary they fliould kill them if they do not adopt 

 them, as they frequently do, to fupply the number of their own 



people, 



* Lib. iv. Ode r. 



