riests and poets of those people, so
celebrated for their savage virtue. Those heroic barbarians accounted it
a dishonour to die in their beds, and rushed on to certain death in the
prospect of an after-life, and for the glory of a song from their bards
in praise of their actions.--POPE.

The opinion was general among the Goths that men who died natural deaths
went into vast caves underground, all dark and miry, full of noisome
creatures, and there for ever grovelled in stench and misery. On the
contrary, all who died in battle went to the hall of Odin, their god of
war, where they were entertained at infinite tables in perpetual feasts,
carousing in bowls made of the skulls of the enemies they had
slain.--SIR W. TEMPLE.]

[Footnote 55:

It shone lighter than a glass,
And made well more than it was,
To semen every thing, ywis,
As kind of thinge Fames is.--POPE.]

[Footnote 56: Addison's Vision: "On a sudden the trumpet sounded; the
whole fabric shook, and the doors flew open."]

[Footnote 57: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 717:

The roof was fretted gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 58: The exterior of Chaucer's House of Fame,

Both the castle, and the tower
And eke the hall, and every bower

was of beryl, which Pope transfers to the inside of the building.
Chaucer says of the interior that

Every wall
Of it, and floor, and roof, and all
Was plated half a foote thick
Of gold.

This gold was covered, as grass clothes a meadow, with jewelled
ornaments

Fine, of the finest stones fair
That men read in the Lapidaire.]

[Footnote 59: Milton, Par. Lost, i. 726:

From the arched roof
Pendent by subtle magic many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With Naptha and Asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 60: Addison's Vision: "A band of historians took their station
at each door."]

[Footnote 61: Alexander the Great. The tiara was the crown peculiar to
the Asian princes. His desire to be thought the son of Jupiter Ammon,
caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to represent the same upon
his coins, which was continued by several of his successors.--POPE.]

[Footnote 62: Dryden, Ode to St. Cecilia:

A dragon's fiery form belied the god.--BOWLES.]

[Footnote 63: As a warrior and a man of letters; for skill in both
capacities was supposed to be due to Minerva.]