OF SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE. 



417 



the midst of perils, and stretching their barren track from lake to lake, and 

 from mountain to mountain, through the wildest, the boldest, the sublimest, 

 and most fearful line of country that indents the face of the old world, they 

 caught the gloomy grandeur that surrounded them ; exchanged the love of 

 women for the love of war ; and carried fierceness and terror into the whole 

 of their political institutions, their sullen ritual, and their mythology. They 

 neither gave nor would consent to receive quarter; their highest honour being 

 to fall in battle, and their deepest disgrace to sink into the grave by a natural 

 death. They had their heaven, but it was only for heroes ; and they denomi- 

 nated it Valhalla, or the hall of slaughter. They had also their hell, but it 

 was only for those who died at home, and who, as they taught, were imme- 

 diately conveyed to it, and tormented for ever, for their cowardice, with hun- 

 ger, thirst, and misery of every kind. This audacious contempt of death, 

 and burmng desire to enter the hall of their ferocious gods, is correctly de- 

 scribed by Lucan, who calls it a happy exvox—felicis errore suo. 



We here meet with all the passions I have enumerated as characteristic of 

 savage life, but modified and peculiarly directed by local circumstances, which 

 at the same time gave birth to other passions equally fierce and violent. 



Nerved by nature with a firm, robust constitution, and nursed in the midst 

 of cliffs and cataracts, and torrents and tempests, they drank in courage and 

 independence with every breath of air ; their only delight was the gloomy 

 one of hunting out difTiculties and dangers ; their only lust that of battle and 

 conquest ; and their only fear that of being thought cowards on earth, and 

 being shut out from the hall of slaughter in heaven. To adopt once more the 

 language of Lucan, and follow up his correct description, which, nevertheless, 

 before a mixed audience I must endeavour to give in our own tongue, — 



In error bless'd, beneath the polar star, 

 That worst of fears, the fear of death they dare ; 

 Gasping for dangers, prodigal of pain, 

 Spendthrifts of life, that must return again.* 



The natural passions of cruelty, hatred, and revenge seem to have remained 

 untouched, and the whole character of the heart concurred in giving a terrible 

 enthusiasm to their superstition. Patriotism they had none, for they had no 

 country; and they only so far sacrificed their personal liberty, and concen- 

 trated themselves into tribes and clans, with leaders of limited authority at 

 their head, as they found best calculated to give success to their lawless en- 

 terprises. And hence the origin of the feudal system, and the first rude efforts 

 towards a basis of government and civilization in northern Europe. 



Let us contrast this picture with one of a different kind. 



Seated in an early period of the world in the vicinity of these ferocious 

 mountaineers, but at the southern foot of the Caucasus, instead of at its summit, 

 we behold another set of barbarians, who progressively spread themselves into 

 the softer regions of the south and west, under the names of Gomerians or Cy me- 

 rians, and Celts. Their patronymic appellation sufficiently proves them to 

 have been the sons of Gomer, and gives them a near connexion with the 

 tribes we have just noticed. The country which formed their cradle was 

 the finest part of Asia Minor, a country that has been regarded in all ages as 

 the garden of the world. Soft, tepid airs ; a rich, productive soil, that scarcely 

 demanded cultivation ; plains and sloping hills extending in every direction, 

 and covered with fattening verdure ; fountains interspersed, and meandering 

 rivers ; banks blossoming with the choicest flowers, and suffused with the 

 sweetest odours; the refreshing foliage of deep umbrageous woods; and 

 over all the blue and cloudless canopy of the skies, diffusing light, and laughter, 



* Certe populi, quos despicit Arctus 

 Felices errore suo, quos ille timoruni 

 Maximus baud urget lethi melus. Inde ruendi 

 In ferrum mens prona vivis, aiiimseque capaces 

 Mortis ; et ignavum rediturae parcere vitae. 



Phars.Lib. i.458. 



Dd 



