BULL-FIGHTS. 227 



pomp of the funerals, in the churches of St John 

 Lateran and St Maria Maggiore, afforded a second 

 holiday to the people. Doubtless, it was not in such 

 conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have 

 been shed, yet, in blaming their rashness, we are 

 compelled to applaud their gallantry ; and the noble 

 volunteers, who display their magnificence, and risk 

 their lives, under the balconies of the fair, excite a 

 more generous sympathy than the thousands of cap- 

 tives and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged 

 to the scene of slaughter.t 



In Britain, similar exhibitions appear not to have 

 been without their admirers ; and we find bull-bait- 

 ing and bull running patronised by royalty amongst 

 us, and these shows even graced by the presence of 

 the softer sex. 



Queen Elizabeth, on the 25th of May 1559, soon 

 after her accession to the throne, gave a splendid 

 dinner to the French ambassadors, who afterwards 

 were entertained with the baiting of bulls and bears, 

 and the queen herself stood with the ambassadors 

 looking on the pastime till six at night. The day 

 following, the same ambassadors went by water to 

 Paris Garden, where they saw another baiting of 

 bulls and of bears; and again, twenty-seven years 

 posterior, Queen Elizabeth received the Danish am- 

 bassador at Greenwich, who was treated with the 

 light of a bear and bull-baiting, " tempered," says 



t Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 

 xii. p. 416-418. 



