OF SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE. 



471 



political constitution and habits of the people. Let us see how far this 

 . remark is supported by history. 



\ . From the cap or caf of the Caucasus descended those streams of adven- 

 turers that under the names of Getes, Goths, Scythians, and Scandinavians, 

 over-run all the north of Europe, and progressively spread themselves from 

 the Caspian Sea to the Thames. Born in the midst of snows, brought up 

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

 and from mountain to mountain, through the wildest, the boldest, the sub- 

 limest, 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 denominated 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 immediately conveyed to it, and tormented for 

 ever, for their cowardice, with hunger, thirst, and misery of every kind. 

 This audacious contempt of death, and burning desire to enter the hall of 

 their ferocious gods, is correctly described by Lucan, who calls it a happy 

 error— felices 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 give 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 difficulties 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 descrip- 

 tion, which, nevertheless, before a mixed audience 1 must endeavour to^ 

 give in our own tongue, 



In error bless'd, beneath the polar star, 

 The worst of fears, the fear of death fhey 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 concentrated themselves into tribes an^' c'ans, with leaders of limited 

 authority at their head, as they found best calculated to give success to 

 their lawless enterprises. And hence the origin of the feudal system, and 



* Certe populi, quos despicit Arctus 

 Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum 

 Maximus baud urget lerhi metus. Inde rnendi 

 In ferrum mens prona vivis, aniniaeq ie capaces ' 

 Mortis ; et ignavnra reditursa parcere vnae 



Phras. Lib, i, 458, 



