The Valkyrs, the Choosers of the Slain, who ride before the battle, and select its victims; to whom, afterwards (softening their character), they administer in Walhalla. 4.--Page 245, stanza lx. _When Caesar bridged with marching steel the Rhine._ Plut. _in vit. Caes._--CAES. _Comment._ lib. iv. 5.--Page 246, stanza lxxi. _So bloom'd the Hours, when from the heaving sea._ Hom. _Hymn_. 6.--Page 246, stanza lxxii. _Or shy Napaeae, startled from their sleep._ Napaeae, the most bashful of all the rural nymphs; their rare apparition was supposed to produce delirium in the beholder. 7.--Page 247, stanza lxxv. _A wise Etrurian chief, forewarn'd ('twas said) By his dark Caere, from the danger fled._ Caere of the twelve cities in the Etrurian league (though not originally an Etrurian population), imparted to the Romans their sacred mysteries: hence the word Caeremonia. This holy city was in close connection with Delphi. An interesting account of it under its earlier name "Agylla," will be found in Sir W. Gell's "Topography of Rome and its vicinity." The obscure passage in Plutarch's life of Sylla, which intimates that the Etrurian soothsayers had a forewarning of the declining fates of their country, is well known to scholars; who have made more of it than it deserves. I may as well observe that the adjective _Lartian_ is derived from _Lars_ (or lord), in contradistinction to the adjective _Larian_ derived from _Lar_ (or household god). 8.--Page 248, stanza lxxxi. _His rod the Augur waves above the ground, And cries, "In Tina's name I bless the soil._" Tina was the Jove of the Etrurians. The mode in which this people (whose mysterious civilization so tasks our fancy and so escapes from our researches) appropriated a colony, is briefly described in the text. The Augur made lines in the air due north, south, east, and west, marked where the lines crossed upon the earth; then he and the chiefs associated with him sate down, covered their heads, and waited some approving omen from the gods. The Etrurian Augurs were celebrated for their power over the electric fluid. The vulture was a popular bird of omen in the founding of colonies. See NIEBUHR, MULLER, &c. 9.--Page 248, stanza lxxxiv. _Tombs only speak the Etrurian's language;--hurl'd._ The Etrurian language perished between the age of Augustus and that of Julian.--LEITCH'S _Muller on Ancient Art_. 10.--Page 248, stanza lxxxiv. _To dust the shrines of Naith;--the serpents hiss._ Naith, the Egyptian goddess. 11.--Page 249, stanza lxxxix. _The Hister's lyre still thrill'd with Camsee's lays._ Hister, the Etruscan minstrel.--CAMSEE, CAMESE, or CAMOESE, the mythological sister of Janus (a national deity of the Etrurians), whose art of song is supposed to identify her with the Camoena or muse of the Latin poets.--ARRETIUM, celebrated for the material of the Etruscan vases.