used it as a towel; and whoever had the most of those towels was
most esteemed among them. So much had martial bravery, in that
nation, as well as in many others, destroyed the sentiments of
humanity; a virtue surely much more useful and engaging.

It is indeed observable, that, among all uncultivated nations,
who have not as yet had full experience of the advantages
attending beneficence, justice, and the social virtues, courage
is the predominant excellence; what is most celebrated by poets,
recommended by parents and instructors, and admired by the public
in general. The ethics of Homer are, in this particular, very
different from those of Fenelon, his elegant imitator; and such
as were well suited to an age, when one hero, as remarked by
Thucydides [Lib.i.], could ask another, without offence, whether
he were a robber or not. Such also very lately was the system of
ethics which prevailed in many barbarous parts of Ireland; if we
may credit Spencer, in his judicious account of the state of that
kingdom.

[Footnote from Spencer: It is a common use, says he, amongst
their gentlemen's sons, that, as soon as they are able to use
their weapons, they strait gather to themselves three or four
stragglers or kern, with whom wandering a while up and down idly
the country, taking only meat, he at last falleth into some bad
occasion, that shall be offered; which being once made known, he
is thenceforth counted a man of worth, in whom there is courage.]

Of the same class of virtues with courage is that undisturbed
philosophical tranquillity, superior to pain, sorrow, anxiety,
and each assault of adverse fortune. Conscious of his own virtue,