219 
SPANISH BULL-F1GHTIN€V. 
on the field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on 
the side of their adversaries. Sonic of the noblest families might 
mourn 5 but the pomp of the funerals, in the churches of St. John 
Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the 
people. “ It was not in such conflicts that the blood of Romans 
should have been shed ; yet in blaming their rashness, we are com- 
pelled to applaud their gallantry; and the volunteers who display 
their magnificence and risk their lives under the balconies of the fair, 
excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of captives 
and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged to the scene of 
slaughter.” 
Spanish Bull-Fighting. 
A STRIKING relic of barbarity in the Spanish manners is the 
excessive attachment of that nation to bull-fights, a spectacle which 
shocks the delicacy of every other nation in Europe. Many Spaniards 
consider this practice as the sure means of preserving that energy by 
which they are characterized, and of habituating them to violent 
emotions, which are terrible only to timid minds. But it seems diffi- 
cult to comprehend what relation there is between bravery, and a 
-spectacle where the assistants now run no danger; where the actors 
prove, by the few accidents which befall them, that theirs has nothing 
in it very interesting ; and where the unhappy victims meet only with 
certain death, as the reward of their vigour and courage. The bull- 
fights are very expensive, but they bring great gain to the undertakers. 
The worst places cost two or four rials, according as they are in the 
sun or in the shade *. the price of the highest is a dollar* When the 
Rrice of the horses and bulls, and the wages of the torreadores, have 
been paid out of the money, the rest is generally appropriated to 
pious foundations; at Madrid it forms one of the principal funds 
of the hospital. It is only during summer that these combats are 
exhibited, because the season then permits the spectators to sit in 
the open air, and because the bulls are then most vigorous. Those 
which are of the best breed are condemned to this kind of sacrifice ; 
and connoisseurs are so well acquainted with their distinguishing 
marks, that so soon as the bull appears upon the arena, they can 
mention the place where he was reared. This arena is a kind of cir- 
cus surrounded by about a dozen seats, rising one above another ; 
the highest of which only is covered. The boxes occupy the lower 
part of the edifice. In cities which have no place particularly set 
apart for these combats, the principal square is converted into a 
theatre. The balconies of the houses are widened, so as to project 
over the streets which end there. The spectacle commences by a 
kind of procession round the square, in which appear, on horseback 
and on foot, the combatants who are to attack the fierce animal; 
after which two alguazils, dressed in perukes and black robes, 
advance with great gravity on horseback ; who ask from the presi- 
dent of tile entertainment an order for it to commence. A signal is 
immediately given, and the animal, which was before shut up in a 
kind of hovel with a door opening into the square, soon makes its 
