on and submission;
and enumerating all the distresses of that unfortunate heroine, asks
her, what she has to support her against her numerous and implacable
enemies. MYSELF, replies she; MYSELF I SAY, AND IT IS ENOUGH. Boileau
justly recommends this passage as an instance of true sublime [Footnote:
Reflexion 10 sur Longin.].

When Phocion, the modest, the gentle Phocion, was led to execution, he
turned to one of his fellow-sufferers, who was lamenting his own
hard fate, IS IT NOT GLORY ENOUGH FOR YOU, says he, THAT YOU DIE WITH
PHOCION? [Footnote: Plutarch in Phoc.]

Place in opposition the picture which Tacitus draws of Vitellius, fallen
from empire, prolonging his ignominy from a wretched love of life,
delivered over to the merciless rabble; tossed, buffeted, and kicked
about; constrained, by their holding a poinard under his chin, to raise
his head, and expose himself to every contumely. What abject infamy!
What low humiliation! Yet even here, says the historian, he discovered
some symptoms of a mind not wholly degenerate. To a tribune, who
insulted him, he replied, I AM STILL YOUR EMPEROR.

[Footnote: Tacit. hist. lib. iii. The author entering upon the
narration, says, LANIATA VESTE, FOEDUM SPECACULUM DUCEBATUR, MULTIS
INCREPANTIBUS, NULLO INLACRIMANTE: deformatitas exitus misericordiam
abstulerat. To enter thoroughly into this method of thinking, we must
make allowance for the ancient maxims, that no one ought to prolong his
life after it became dishonourable; but, as he had always a right to
dispose of it, it then became a duty to part with it.]

We never excuse the absolute want of spirit and dignity of character, or
a proper sense of what is due to one's self, in society and the common
intercourse of life. This vice constitutes what we properly call
MEANNESS; when a man can submit to the basest slavery, in order to
gain his ends; fawn upon those who abuse him; and degrade himself by
intimacies and familiarities with undeserving inferiors. A certain
degree of generous pride or self-value is so requisite, that the absence
of it in the mind displeases, after the same manner as the want of a
nose, eye, or any of the most material feature of the face or member of
the body.

[Footnote: The absence of virtue may often be a vice; and that of
the highest kind; as in the instance of ingratitude, as well as
meanness. Where we expect a beauty, the disappointment gives an uneasy
sensation, and produces a