n and civil, but rash confidence is
barbarous and evil; and the former is therefore to be imitated, and the
latter to be avoided.

It is a matter too of no unprofitable consideration, how the minds of
the Trojans and of Hector too were affected when he and Ajax were about
to engage in a single combat. For Aeschylus, when, upon one of the
fighters at fisticuffs in the Isthmian games receiving a blow on the
face, there was made a great outcry among the people, said: "What a
thing is practice! See how the lookers-on only cry out, but the man that
received the stroke is silent." But when the poet tells us, that the
Greeks rejoiced when they saw Ajax in his glistering armor, but

The Trojans' knees for very fear did quake,
And even Hector's heart began to ache;
("Iliad," vii. 215. For the three following,
see "Iliad," ii. 220; v. 26 and 231.)

who is there that wonders not at this difference,--when the heart of
him that was to run the risk of the combat only beats inwardly, as if he
were to undertake a mere wrestling or running match, but the very bodies
of the spectators tremble and shake, out of the kindness and fear which
they had for their king?

In the same poet also we may observe the difference betwixt the humor of
a coward and a valiant man. For Thersites

Against Achilles a great malice had,
And wise Ulysses he did hate as bad;

but Ajax is always represented as friendly to Achilles; and particularly
he speaks thus to Hector concerning him:--

Hector I approach my arm, and singly know
What strength thou hast, and what the Grecian foe.
Achilles shuns the fight; yet some there are
Not void of soul, and not unskill'd in war:

wherein he insinuates the high commendation of that valiant man. And in
what follows, he speaks like handsome things of his fellow-soldiers in
general, thus:--

Whole troops of heroes Greece has yet to boast,
And sends thee one, a sample of her host;

wherein he doth not boast himself to be the only or the best champion,
but one of those, among many others, who were fit to undertake that
combat.

What hath been said is sufficient upon the point of dissimilitudes;
except we think fit to add this, that many of the Trojans came into the
enemy's power alive, but none of the Grecians; and that many Trojans
supplicated to their enemies,--as (for instance) Adrastus, the sons of
Antimachus, Lycaon,--and even Hector himself entrea