Note vi — THE DEATH-PAINTER;
Reading edition
It was midnight—yet a light was burning in a small chamber situated in one of the narrowest and least frequented streets of Eboracum, then the metropolis of the world. York at that period being the residence of the Emperor Severus, his court and family were conveyed hither; and the government of the world transferred to an obscure island in the west, once the ultima Thule[vi] of civilisation, its native inhabitants hardly yet emerged from a state of barbarism, and addicted to the most gross and revolting superstitions.