CHAPTER XIII.
Sequel of the customs, arts and Sciences of the ancient Scandinavians.
THE arts which are necessary to the convenience of life, are but indifferently cultivated among a people, who neglect the more pleasing and refined ones. The Scandinavians held them all equally in contempt: What little attention they bestowed on any, was chiefly on such as were subservient to their darling passion. This contempt for the arts, which mens’ desire of justifying their own sloth inspires, received additional strength from their sanguinary religion, from their extravagant fondness for liberty, which could not brook a long confinement in the same place, and especially from their rough, fiery and quarrelsome temper, which taught them to place all the happiness and glory of man in being able to brave his equals and to repel insults.
