[29] It was the fanciful opinion of Hume that the purer Divinities of pagan worship, and the system of the Homeric Olympus, were so lastingly beautiful, that somewhere or other they must, to this hour, continue to exist.
[30] Chiefly by marriage with princesses who were heirs to these kingdoms and principalities. It was thus that Hungary, Bohemia, and the Tyrol were acquired. Hence the lines—
"Bella gerant alii; tu, felix Austria, nube:
Nam quæ Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."
You, Austria, wed as others wage their wars;
And crowns to Venus owe, as they to Mars.
It was by marriage that the Saxon emperor, Otho the Great, acquired Lombardy for the German empire.
[31] The acts passed by the diet are numbered by articles, as those of our parliament are by chapters. Each of these articles, when it has received the royal assent, becomes a statute of the kingdom, in the same manner as with us, and of course equally binds the sovereign and his subjects.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious typographical errors were repaired.
Hyphenation and accent variations retained as in original.
Footnotes on p.509, 577 (first footnote), and 590 were unanchored in the original. They have been anchored to the chapter headings on those pages.