[3254] “Fulget gemma floris, et jaspide fulva supellex,
Strata micant Tyrio”------

With sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, opiparous fare, &c., besides the gallantest young men, the fairest [3255]virgins, puellae scitulae ministrantes, the rarest beauties the world could afford, and those set out with costly and curious attires, ad stuporem usque spectantium, with exquisite music, as in [3256]Trimaltion’s house, in every chamber sweet voices ever sounding day and night, incomparabilis luxus, all delights and pleasures in each kind which to please the senses could possibly be devised or had, convives coronati, delitiis ebrii, &c.  Telemachus, in Homer, is brought in as one ravished almost at the sight of that magnificent palace, and rich furniture of Menelaus, when he beheld

[3257] “Aeris fulgorem et resonantia tecta corusco
        Auro, atque electro nitido, sectoque elephanto,
        Argentoque simul.  Talis Jovis ardua sedes,
        Aulaque coelicolum stellans splendescit Olympo.”

       “Such glittering of gold and brightest brass to shine,
        Clear amber, silver pure, and ivory so fine: 
        Jupiter’s lofty palace, where the gods do dwell,
        Was even such a one, and did it not excel.”

It will laxare animos, refresh the soul of man to see fair-built cities, streets, theatres, temples, obelisks, &c.  The temple of Jerusalem was so fairly built of white marble, with so many pyramids covered with gold; tectumque templi fulvo coruscans auro, nimio suo fulgore obcaecabat oculos itinerantium, was so glorious, and so glistened afar off, that the spectators might not well abide the sight of it.  But the inner parts were all so curiously set out with cedar, gold, jewels, &c., as he said of Cleopatra’s palace in Egypt,—­[3258]_Crassumque trabes absconderat aurum_, that the beholders were amazed.  What so pleasant as to see some pageant or sight go by, as at coronations, weddings, and such like solemnities, to see an ambassador or a prince met, received, entertained with masks, shows, fireworks, &c.  To see two kings fight in single combat, as Porus and Alexander; Canute and Edmund Ironside; Scanderbeg and Ferat Bassa the Turk; when not honour alone but life itself is at stake, as the [3259]poet of Hector,

------“nec enim pro tergore Tauri,
Pro bove nec certamen erat, quae praemia cursus
Esse solent, sed pro magni viraque animaque—­Hectoris.”

To behold a battle fought, like that of Crecy, or Agincourt, or Poitiers, qua nescio (saith Froissart) an vetustas ullam proferre possit clariorem.  To see one of Caesar’s triumphs in old Rome revived, or the like.  To be present at an interview, [3260]as that famous of Henry the Eighth and Francis the First, so much renowned all over Europe; ubi tanto apparatu (saith Hubertus Veillius) tamque triumphali pompa ambo reges com eorum conjugibus coiere, ut nulla unquam