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.