320 On Tragical Representations. 
of the human character, with the most approved 
likeness of the human mind. There are, indeed, 
some examples of this propensity so rude, unci- 
vilized, and inhuman, as mock all efforts of in- 
genuity to reduce them to a consistent and. 
agreeable system. Such were the exhibitions of 
gladiators, among the Romans; the tournaments 
and justs of gothic chivalry; such are the bull- 
fights of the Spaniards; the combats with the 
broad sword; the bull-baitings, cock-fights, and 
Shrove-tide amusements of our own nation; to- 
gether with the horrid jollity of the North 
American tribes, exulting over the tortures of 
their ill-fated_prisoners. . 
Most or all of these national reproaches are, 
in a greater or less degree, the offspring of a 
rude military genius, and savage heroism; which, 
by an early familiarity with the excesses and 
cruelties of war, let loose in all its wildness, have 
triumphed over nature, over the kinder dictates 
ofa general humanity. In'these, the pleasure of 
the spectators, unnatural as it is, is pure and un- 
mixed; by whatever means they have subdued 
their minds to the capacity of this pleasure, when 
once the relish is acquired, their continued pro- 
pensity to such scenes is perfectly ‘natural, as it 
is not combated by any feeling of sympathetic 
pain during the exhibition. ‘This is clearly at- 
tested of the Roman people, by the uniform ac- 
counts of their own historians: foreign nations 
es 
