vely sustains
the truth of the apparition; which is rejected, however, by the most
learned and pious Catholics.]

Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return
more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria,
were not delivered to his ambassadors within the term stipulated by the
treaty. Yet, in the mean while, Attila relieved his tender anxiety,
by adding a beautiful maid, whose name was Ildico, to the list of his
innumerable wives. [67] Their marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp
and festivity, at his wooden palace beyond the Danube; and the monarch,
oppressed with wine and sleep, retired at a late hour from the banquet
to the nuptial bed. His attendants continued to respect his pleasures,
or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing day, till the unusual
silence alarmed their fears and suspicions; and, after attempting to
awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries, they at length broke into the
royal apartment. They found the trembling bride sitting by the bedside,
hiding her face with her veil, and lamenting her own danger, as well as
the death of the king, who had expired during the night. [68] An artery
had suddenly burst: and as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was
suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a passage
through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and stomach. His body
was solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken pavilion;
and the chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in measured
evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the memory of a hero, glorious in
his life, invincible in his death, the father of his people, the scourge
of his enemies, and the terror of the world. According to their national
custom, the Barbarians cut off a part of their hair, gashed their faces
with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their valiant leader as he deserved,
not with the tears of women, but with the blood of warriors. The remains
of Attila were enclosed within three coffins, of gold, of silver, and
of iron, and privately buried in the night: the spoils of nations were
thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened the ground were
inhumanly massacred; and the same Huns, who had indulged such excessive
grief, feasted, with dissolute and intemperate mirth, about the recent
sepulchre of their king. It was reported at Constantinople, that on the
fortunate night on which he expired, Marcian beheld in a dream the bow
of Attila