ungary, the sole city of an empire which extended for some thousand
miles. In the number of these ambassadors were some who were conducting
an intrigue with Attila's own people for his assassination, and who
actually had with them the imperial gold which was to be the price of
the crime. Attila was aware of the conspiracy, and showed his knowledge
of it; but, from respect for the law of nations and of hospitality, he
spared the guilty instruments or authors. Sad as it is to have to record
such practices of an Imperial Court professedly Christian, still, it is
not unwelcome, for the honour of human nature, to discover in
consequence of them those vestiges of moral rectitude which the
degradation of ages had not obliterated from the Tartar character. It is
well known that when Homer, 1,500 years before, speaks of these
barbarians, he calls them, on the one hand, "drinkers of mare's milk;"
on the other, "the most just of men." Truth, honesty, justice,
hospitality, according to their view of things, are the historical
characteristics, it must be granted, of Scythians, Tartars, and Turks,
down to this day; and Homer, perhaps, as other authors after him, was
the more struck with such virtues in these wild shepherds, in contrast
with the subtlety and perfidy, which, then as since, were the qualities
of his own intellectually gifted countrymen.

Attila, though aware of the treachery and of the traitor, had received
the Roman ambassadors, as a barbarian indeed, but as a king; and with
that strange mixture of rudeness and magnificence of which I shall have,
as I proceed, to give more detailed specimens. As he entered the royal
village or capital with his guests, a numerous troop of women came out
to meet him, and marched in long files before him, chanting hymns in his
honour. As he passed the door of one of his favourite soldiers, the wife
of the latter presented wine and meat for his refreshment. He did not
dismount, but a silver table was raised for his accommodation by his
domestics, and then he continued his march. His palace, which was all of
wood, was surrounded by a wooden wall, and contained separate houses for
each of his numerous wives. The Romans were taken round to all of them
to pay their respects; and they admired the singular quality and
workmanship of the wooden columns, which they found in the apartments of
his queen or state wife. She received them reclining on a soft couch,
with her ladies round her working at e