In exhibiting to Odysseus in the shades below a group of the fairest and most famous of women, Homer has been supposed by some of his commentators to have designed a lecture on mortality to the whole sex. Tertullian’s trumpet is blown with no uncertain sound when _he_ thus addresses the frivolous fair of his day: “I have said, ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most High.... But, O gods of flesh and blood, O gods of earth and dust, ye shall die like men, and all your glory shall fall to the ground, _veruntamen sicut homines moriemini_.” This is in Tertullian’s description of the vain and prodigal and exacting beauty. Suggestive in its way is an anecdote related by Mrs. Thrale about Sir Joshua Reynolds’s picture of two fashionable belles, Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Bouverie, attired as two shepherdesses, and with this motto attached, _Et in Arcadiâ ego_. What could that mean? is Dr. Johnson said to have asked. Reynolds replied that the king could have told him: “_He_ saw it yesterday, and said at once, ‘Oh, there is a tombstone in the background. Ay, ay, death is even in Arcadia.’” The thought is said to have been borrowed from Poussin—where some gay revellers stumble over a death’s head, with a scroll proceeding from its mouth, saying, Et in Arcadiâ _ego_. Memorable at Saladin’s banquet to Richard and his peers—ever memorable among the banners and pennons, the trophies of battles won and kingdoms overthrown, is the long lance displaying a shroud, “the banner of Death, with this impressive inscription—‘Saladin, King of Kings—Saladin, Victor of Victors—Saladin must Die.’” Poet Prior laments with courtly distress the inflexible fact that the British monarch, to whom he is addressing his _carmen seculare_ for the year of grace MDCC., must go the way of all flesh: “But a relentless destiny Urges all that e’er was born: Snatch’d from her arms, Britannia once must mourn The demi-god; the earthly half must die.” For as Master Matthew puts it in another ode:— “Alike must every state and every age Sustain the universal tyrant’s rage; For neither William’s power nor Mary’s charms Could, or repel, or pacify his arms. ... Wisdom and eloquence in vain would plead One moment’s respite for the learned head: Judges of writings and of men have died (Mæcenas, Sackville, Socrates, and Hyde); And in their various turns their sons must tread Those gloomy journeys which their sires have led. “The ancient sage, who did so long maintain That bodies die, but souls return again, With all the births and deaths he had in store Went out Pythagoras, and came no more. And modern Asgill,[17] whose capricious thought Is yet with stores of wilder notions fraught, Too soon convinced, shall yield that fleeting breath Which played so idly with the darts of death.”