Quid nisi victis dolor

What but misery to the conquered; and «væ victis!» woe to the conquered! was the cruel taunt of Brennus to the Romans, complaining that he exacted more than they had stipulated to pay, as a ransom for their city; reproaching them, perhaps, that they had not made so strenuous a defence as they ought to have done, before they capitulated. It should be sounded in the ears of the careless, the indolent, arid the profligate, in short, of all who, having nothing but their genius or their industry to depend upon for their support, pass their time in sloth and inactivity; or who dissipate the property left them by their parents, in the foolish, or perhaps criminal indulgence of their passions. What pleasure, or what comforts, are to be purchased by poverty, and what are they to expect, when they have reduced themselves to a state of indigence, but the neglect of those who would have been their friends, or the cold consolation of pity? How little relief distress may expect from pity, the following very just observations of Goldsmith shew: «Pity and friendship are passions incompatible with each other; and it is impossible that both can reside in any breast, for the smallest space of time, without impairing each other. Friendship is made up of esteem and pleasure, but pity is composed of sorrow and contempt. In fact», he adds, «pity, though it may often relieve, is but at best a short lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than a transitory assistance», which is consonant to the following observation of Dryden,
―"pity only with new objects stays,
But with the tedious sight of woe decays."