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 humilation!  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 real deformity.  An abjectness of character, likewise, is disgustful and contemptible in another view.  Where a man has no sense of value in himself, we are not likely to have any higher esteem of him.  And if the same person, who crouches to his superiors, is insolent to his inferiors (as often happens), this contrariety of behaviour, instead of correcting the former vice, aggravates it extremely by the addition of a vice still more odious.  See Sect.  VIII.]

The utility of courage, both to the public and to the person possessed of it, is an obvious foundation of merit.  But to any one who duly considers of the matter, it will appear that this quality has a peculiar lustre, which it derives wholly from itself, and from that noble elevation inseparable from it.  Its figure, drawn by painters and by poets, displays, in each feature, a sublimity and daring confidence; which catches the eye, engages the affections, and diffuses, by sympathy, a like sublimity of sentiment over every spectator.