The terrific honours which these ferocious nations paid to their deceased monarchs are recorded in history, by the interment of Attila, king of the Huns, and Alaric, king of the Goths.
Attila died in 453, and was buried in the midst of a vast champaign in a coffin which was inclosed in one of gold, another of silver, and a third of iron. With the body were interred all the spoils of the enemy, harnesses embroidered with gold and studded with jewels, rich silks, and whatever they had taken most precious in the palaces of the kings they had pillaged; and that the place of his interment might for ever remain concealed, the Huns deprived of life all who assisted at his burial!
The Goths had done nearly the same for Alaric in 410, at Cosença, a town in Calabria. They turned aside the river Vasento; and having formed a grave in the midst of its bed where its course was most rapid, they interred this king with prodigious accumulations of riches. After having caused the river to reassume its usual course, they murdered, without exception, all those who had been concerned in digging this singular grave.
VICARS OF BRAY.
The vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, was a papist under the reign of Henry the Eighth, and a Protestant under Edward the Sixth; he was a papist again under Mary, and once more became a Protestant in the reign of Elizabeth.[59] When this scandal to the gown was reproached for his versatility of religious creeds, and taxed for being a turncoat and an inconstant changeling, as Fuller expresses it, he replied, "Not so neither; for if I changed my religion, I am sure I kept true to my principle; which is, to live and die the vicar of Bray!"
This vivacious and reverend hero has given birth to a proverb peculiar to this county, "The vicar of Bray will be vicar of Bray still." But how has it happened that this vicar should be so notorious, and one in much higher rank, acting the same part, should have escaped notice? Dr. Kitchen, bishop of Llandaff, from an idle abbot under Henry VIII. was made a busy bishop; Protestant under Edward, he returned to his old master under Mary; and at last took the oath of supremacy under Elizabeth, and finished as a parliament Protestant. A pun spread the odium of his name; for they said that he had always loved the Kitchen better than the Church!
DOUGLAS.
It may be recorded as a species of Puritanic barbarism, that no later than the year 1757, a man of genius was persecuted because he had written a tragedy which tended by no means to hurt the morals; but, on the contrary, by awakening the piety of domestic affections with the nobler passions, would rather elevate and purify the mind.