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 
ns, 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 
sight of a bear and bull-baiting, “ tempered,” says 
t Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 
xii. p. 416-418. j 
