f the ignominious approach
of disease and infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In
a solemn assembly of the Swedes and Goths he wounded himself in nine
mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying voice) to
prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the great god of war.'[4]

In a note Gibbon adds, referring to the Roman and Oriental part of the
legend: 'This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducing the
enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a cause, might supply
the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot safely be received as
authentic history. According to the obvious sense of the Edda, and the
interpretation of the most skilful critics, Asgard, instead of denoting
a real city of the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of
the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia.' Whether the
emigration of the Barbaric race from the East be or be not historical,
certainly the grounds upon which Gibbon bases his distrust of it are
slender. He forgot that there might well have been both an earthly
Asgard and also, according to the religion of the north, an Asgard in
heaven, the destined abode of warriors faithful to Odin. Those who after
his death changed their king into a god would, by necessity, have
provided him with a celestial mansion; nor could they have assigned to
it a name more acceptable to a race which blended so closely their
religion with their patriotic love than that of their ancient capital,
from which their great deliverer and prophet had led them forth in
pilgrimage. Let us hope that Gibbon's remark as to the fitness of this
grand legend for the purposes of epic poetry may yet prove prophecy. It
has had one chance already: for we learn from the first book of _The
Prelude_ that the theme was one of those on which the imagination of
Wordsworth rested in youth, when he was seeking a fit subject for epic
song.

It is difficult to imagine a historical legend invested with a greater
moral weight or dignity than belongs to this one. The mighty Republic
was soon to pass into an Empire mightier and more ruthless still, the
heir of all those ancient empires which from the earliest had
represented a dominion founded on the pride of this world, and had
trampled upon human right. A race is selected to work the retribution.
It is qualified for its work by centuries of adversity, only to be
paralleled by the prosperity of its rival. Yet when at last th