s Germans had an opportunity
of tasting the blessings of peace and harmony. [65] The truce of God,
so often and so ineffectually proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh
century, was an obvious imitation of this ancient custom. [66]

[Footnote 64: Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]

[Footnote 65: Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]

[Footnote 66: See Dr. Robertson's History of Charles V. vol. i. note
10.]

But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,
than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest and
fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most daring
and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of Heaven, and full
assurances of success. The consecrated standards, long revered in the
groves of superstition, were placed in the front of the battle; [67] and
the hostile army was devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war
and of thunder. [68] In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans)
cowardice is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy
favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his shield
was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies of his
countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced the doctrine
of transmigration, [69] others imagined a gross paradise of immortal
drunkenness. [70] All agreed, that a life spent in arms, and a glorious
death in battle, were the best preparations for a happy futurity, either
in this or in another world.

[Footnote 67: Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only the heads
of wild beasts.]

[Footnote 68: See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57.]

[Footnote 69: Caesar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this doctrine
to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l. iii. c. 18)
labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox sense.]

[Footnote 70: Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the Edda,
see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book, published by M.
Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of Denmark.]

The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some degree,
conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has most deservedly
attracted the notice of all who have attempted to investigate the
antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Their
genius and character, as well as the reverence paid to that important
office, have been sufficiently illustrated. But we cannot so easily
expres