OUR honest John Bulls have long been more partial to their Spanish namesakes, than even to those perpetrated by the Pope, or made in the Emerald Isle; to see a bull-fight has been the emphatic object of enlightened curiosity, since Peninsular sketches have been taken and published by our travellers. No sooner had Charles the First, when prince, lost his heart at Madrid, than his royal father-in-law-that-was-to-be, regaled him and the fair inspirer of his tender passion, with one of these charming spectacles; an event which, as many men and animals were butchered, was thought by the historiographers of the day to be one that posterity would not willingly let die; their contemporary accounts will ever form the gems of every tauromachian library that aspires to be complete.

These sports, which recall the bloody games of the Roman amphitheatre, are now only to be seen in Spain, where the present clashes with the past, where at every moment we stumble on some bone and relic of Biblical and Roman antiquity; the close parallels, nay the identities, which are observable between these combats and those of classical ages, both as regards the spectators and actors, are omitted, as being more interesting to the scholar than to the general reader; they were pointed out by us some years ago in the Quarterly Review, No. cxxiv. And as human nature changes not, men when placed in given and similar circumstances, will without any previous knowledge or intercommunication arrive at nearly similar results; the gentle pastime of spearing and killing bulls in public and single-handed was probably devised by the Moors, or rather by the Spanish Moors, for nothing of the kind has ever obtained in Africa either now or heretofore. The Moslem Arab, when transplanted into a Christian and European land, modified himself in many respects to the ways and usages of the people among whom he settled, just as his Oriental element was widely introduced among his Gotho-Hispano neighbours. Moorish Andalucia is still the head-quarters of the tauromachian art, and those who wish carefully to master this, the science of Spain par excellence, should commence their studies in the school of Ronda, and proceed thence to take the highest honours in the University of Seville, the Bullford of the Peninsula.

By the way, our boxing, baiting term bull-fight is a very lay and low translation of the time-honoured Castilian title, Fiestas de Toros, the feasts, festivals of bulls. The gods and goddesses of antiquity were conciliated by the sacrifice of hecatombs; the lowing tickled their divine ears, and the purple blood fed their eyes, no less than the roasted sirloins fattened the priests, while the grand spectacle and death delighted their dinnerless congregations. In Spain, the Church of Rome, never indifferent to its interests, instantly marshalled into its own service a ceremonial at once profitable and popular;[13] it consecrated butchery by wedding it to the altar, availing itself of this gentle handmaid, to obtain funds in order to raise convents; even in the last century Papal bulls were granted to mendicant orders, authorising them to celebrate a certain number of Fiestas de Toros, on condition of devoting the profit to finishing their church; and in order to swell the receipts at the doors, spiritual indulgences and soul releases from purgatory, the number of years being apportioned to the relative prices of the seats, were added as a bonus to all paid for places at a spectacle hallowed by a pious object. So at the taurobolia of antiquity, those who were sprinkled with bull blood were absolved from sin. Protestant ministers, who very properly fear and distrust papal bulls, replace them by bazaars and fancy fairs, whenever a fashionable chapel requires a new blue slate roofing. Again, when not devoted to religious purposes, every bull-fight aids the cause of charity; the profits form the chief income of the public hospitals, and thus furnish both funds and patients, as the venous circulation of the mob thirsting for gore, rises to blood heat under a sun of fire, and the subsequent mingling of sexes, opening of bottles and knives, occasion more deaths among the lords and ladies of the Spanish creation, than among the horned and hoofed victims of the amphitheatre.

It is a common but very great mistake, to suppose that bull-fights are as numerous in Spain as bandits; it is just the contrary, for this may there be considered the tip-top Æsthetic treat, as the Italian Opera is in England, and both are rather expensive amusements; true it is that with us, only the salt of the earth patronises the performers of the Haymarket, while high and low, vulgar and exquisite, alike delight in those of the Spanish fields. Each bull-fight costs from 200l. to 300l., and even more when got up out of Andalucia or Madrid, which alone can afford to support a standing company; in other cities the actors and animals have to be sent for express, and from great distances. Hence the representations occur like angels’ visits, few and far between; they are reserved for the chief festivals of the church and crown, for the unfeigned devotion of the faithful on the holy days of local saints, and the Virgin; they are also given at the marriages and coronations of the sovereign, and thence are called Fiestas reales, Royal festivals—the ceremonial being then deprived of its religious character, although it is much increased in worldly and imposing importance. The sight is indeed one of surpassing pomp, etiquette, and magnificence, and has succeeded to the Auto de FÉ, in offering to the most Catholic Queen and her subjects the greatest possible means of tasting rapture, that the limited powers of mortal enjoyment can experience in this world of shadows and sorrows.

They are only given at Madrid, and then are conducted entirely after the ancient Spanish and Moorish customs, of which such splendid descriptions remain in the ballad romances. They take place in the great square of the capital, which is then converted into an arena. The windows of the quaint and lofty houses are arranged as boxes, and hung with velvets and silks. The royal family is seated under a canopy of state in the balcony of the central mansion. There we beheld Ferdinand VII. presiding at the solemn swearing of allegiance to his daughter. He was then seated where Charles I. had sat two centuries before; he was guarded by the unchanged halberdiers, and was witnessing the unchanged spectacle. On these royal occasions the bulls are assailed by gentlemen, dressed and armed as in good old Spanish times, before the fatal Bourbon accession obliterated Castilian costume, customs, and nationality. The champions, clad in the fashions of the Philips, and mounted on beauteous barbs, the minions of their race, attack the fierce animal with only a short spear, the immemorial weapon of the Iberian. The combatants must be hidalgos by birth, and have each for a padrino, or god-father, a first-rate grandee of Spain, who passes before royalty in a splendid equipage and six, and is attended by bands of running footmen, who are arrayed either as Greeks, Romans, Moors, or fancy characters. It is not easy to obtain these caballeros en plaza, or poor knights, who are willing to expose their lives to the imminent dangers, albeit during the fight they have the benefit of experienced toreros to advise their actions and cover their retreats.

In 1833 a gentle dame, without the privity of her lord and husband, inscribed his name as one of the champion volunteers. In procuring him this agreeable surprise, she, so it was said in Madrid, argued thus: “Either mi marido will be killed—in that case I shall get a new husband; or he will survive, in which event he will get a pension.” She failed in both of these admirable calculations—such is the uncertainty of human events. The terror of this poor hÉros malgrÉ lui, on whom chivalry had been thrust, was absolutely ludicrous when exposed by his well-intentioned better-half, to the horns of this dilemma and bull. Any other horns, my dearest, but these! He was wounded at the first rush, did survive, and did not get a pension; for Ferdinand died soon after, and few pensions have been paid in the Peninsula, since the land has been blessed with a charte, constitution, liberty, and a representative government.

One anecdote, where another lady is in the case, may be new to our fair readers. We quote from an ancient authentic chronicler:—“It will not be amiss here to mention what fell out in the presence of Charles the First of Blessed Memory, who, while Prince of Wales, repaired to the court of Spain, whether to be married to the Infanta, or upon what other design, I cannot well determine: however, all comedies, playes, and festivals (this of the bulls at Madrid being included), were appointed to be as decently and magnificently gone about as possible, for the more sumptuous and stately entertainment of such a splendid prince. Therefore, after three bulls had been killed, and the fourth a coming forth, there appeared four gentlemen in good equipage; not long after, a brisk lady, in most gorgeous apparel, attended with persons of quality, and some three or four grooms, walked all along the square a-foot. Astonishment seized upon the beholders, that one of the female sex could assume the unheard boldness of exposing herself to the violence of the most furious beast yet seen, which had overcome, yea almost killed, two men of great strength, courage, and dexterity. Incontinently the bull rushed towards the corner where the lady and her attendants stood; she (after all had fled) drew forth her dagger very unconcernedly, and thrust it most dexterously into the bull’s neck, having catched hold of his horn; by which stroak, without any more trouble, her design was brought to perfection; after which, turning about towards the king’s balcony, she made her obeysance, and withdrew herself in suitable state and gravity.”

At the jura of 1833 ninety-nine bulls were massacred; had one more been added the hecatomb would have been complete. These wholesale slaughterings have this year been repeated at the marriage of the same “innocent” Isabel, the critical events of whose life are death-warrants to quadrupeds. Bulls, however, represent in Spain the coronation banquets of England. In that hungry, ascetic land, bulls have always been killed, but no beef eaten; a remarkable fact, which did not escape the learned Justin in his remarks on the no-dinner-giving crowned heads of old Iberia.

These genuine ancient bull-fights were perilous and fatal in the extreme, yet knights were never wanting—valour being the point of honour—who readily exposed their lives in sight of their cruel mistresses. To kill the monster if not killed by him, was, before the time of Hudibras, the sure road to women’s love, who very properly admire those qualities the best, in which they feel themselves to be the most deficient:—

The final conquest of the Moors, and the subsequent cessation of the border chivalrous habits of Spaniards, occasioned these love-pastimes to fall into comparative disuse. The gentle Isabella was so shocked at the bull-fights which she saw at Medina del Campo, that she did her utmost to put them down; but she strove in vain, for the game and monarchy were destined to fall together. The accession of Philip V. deluged the Peninsula with Frenchmen. The puppies of Paris pronounced the Spaniards and their bulls to be barbarous and brutal, as their artistes to this day prefer the boeuf gras of the Boulevards to whole flocks of Iberian lean kine. The spectacle which had withstood her influence, and had beat the bulls of Popes, bowed before the despotism of fashion. The periwigged courtiers deserted the arena, on which the royal Bourbon eye looked coldly, while the sturdy people, foes—then as now—to Frenchmen and innovations, clung closer to the sports of their forefathers. Yet a fatal blow was dealt to the combat: the art, once practised by knights, degenerated into the vulgar butchery of mercenary bull-fighters, who contended not for honour, but base lucre; thus, by becoming the game of the mob, it was soon stripped of every gentlemanlike prestige. So the tournament challenges of our chivalrous ancestors have sunk down to the vulgar boxings of ruffian pugilists.

Baiting a bull in any shape is irresistible to the lower orders of Spain, who disregard injuries to the bodies, and, what is worse, to their cloaks. The hostility to the horned beast is instinctive, and grows with their growth, until it becomes, as men are but children of a larger growth, a second nature. The young urchins in the streets play at “toro,” as ours do at leap-frog; they go through the whole mimic spectacle amongst each other, observing every law and rule, as our schoolboys do when they fight. Few adult Spaniards, when journeying through the country, ever pass a herd of cows without this dormant propensity breaking out; they provoke the animals to fight by waving their cloaks or capas, a challenge hence called el capeo. The villagers, who cannot afford the expense of a regular bull-fight, amuse themselves with baiting novillos, or bull-youngsters—calves of one year old; and embolados, or bulls whose horns are guarded with tips and buttons. These innocent pastimes are despised by the regular aficion, the “fancy;” because, as neither man nor beast are exposed to be killed, the whole affair is based in fiction, and impotent in conclusion. They cry out for Toros de muerte—bulls of death. Nothing short of the reality of blood can allay their excitement. They despise the makeshift spectacle, as much as a true gastronome does mock-turtle, or an old campaigner a sham fight.

In the wilder districts of Andalucia few cattle are ever brought into towns for slaughter, unless led by long ropes, and partially baited by those whose poverty prevents their indulgence in the luxury of real bull-fights and beef. The governor of Tarifa was wont on certain days to let a bull loose into the streets, when the delight of the inhabitants was to shut their doors, and behold from their grated windows the perplexities of the unwary or strangers, pursued by him in the narrow lanes without means of escape. Although many lives were lost, a governor in our time, named Dalmau, otherwise a public benefactor to the place, lost all his popularity in the vain attempt to put the custom down. When the Bourbon Philip V. first visited the plaÇa at Madrid, all the populace roared, Bulls! give us bulls, my lord. They cared little for the ruin of the monarchy; so when the intrusive Joseph Buonaparte arrived at the same place, the only and absorbing topic of public talk was whether he would grant or suppress the bull-fight. And now, as always, the cry of the capital is—“Pan y toros; bread and bulls:” these constitute the loaves and fishes of the “only modern court,” as Panes et Circenses did of ancient Rome. The national scowl and frown which welcomed Montpensier at his marriage, was relaxed for one moment, when Spaniards beheld his well-put-on admiration for the tauromachian spectacle. Nothing, since the recent vast improvements in Spain, has more progressed than the bull-fight—convents have come down, churches have been levelled, but new amphitheatres have arisen. The diffusion of useful and entertaining knowledge, as the means of promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number, has thus obtained the best consideration of those patriots and statesmen who preside over the destinies of Spain; the bull is master of his ground. This last remnant and representative of Spanish nationality defies the foreigner and his civilization; he is a fait accompli, and tramples la charte under his feet, although the honest Roi citoyen swears that it is dÉsormais une vÉritÉ.

In Spain there is no mistaking the day and time that the bull-fight takes place, which is generally on Saint Monday, and in the afternoon, when the mid-day heats are past.

The arena, or Plaza, is most unlike a London Place, those enclosures of stunted smoke-blacked shrubs, fenced in with iron palisadoes to protect aristocratic nurserymaids from the mob. It is at once more classical and amusing. The amphitheatre of Madrid is very spacious, being about 1100 feet in circumference, and will hold 12,000 spectators. In an architectural point of view this ring of the model court, is shabbier than many of those in provincial towns: there is no attempt at orders, pilasters, and Vitruvian columns; there is no adaptation of the Coliseum of Rome: the exterior is bald and plain, as if done so on purpose, while the interior is fitted up with wooden benches, and is scarcely better than a shambles; but for that it was designed, and there is a business-like, murderous intention about it, which marks the inÆsthetic Gotho-Spaniard, who looked for a sport of blood and death, and not to a display of artistical skill. He has no need of extraneous stimulants; the rÉalitÉ atroce, as a tender-hearted foreigner observes, “is all-sufficing, because it is the recreation of the savage, and the sublime of common souls.” The locality, however, is admirably calculated for seeing; and this combat is a spectacle entirely for the eyes. The open space is full of the light of heaven, and here the sun is brighter than gas or wax-candles. The interior is as unadorned as the exterior, and looks positively “mesquin” when empty; around the sanded centre rise rows of wooden seats for the humbler classes, and above them a tier of boxes for the fine ladies and gentlemen; but no sooner is the theatre filled than all this meanness is concealed, and the general appearance becomes superb.

On entering the ring when thus full, the stranger finds his watch put back at once eighteen hundred years; he is transported to Rome under the CÆsars; and in truth the sight is glorious, of the assembled thousands in their Spanish costume, the novelty of the spectacle, associated with our earliest classical studies, are enhanced by the blue expanse of the heavens, spread above as a canopy. There is something in these out-of-door entertainments, À l’antique, which peculiarly affects the shivering denizens of the catch-cold north, where climate contributes so little to the happiness of man. All first-rate connoisseurs go into the pit and place themselves among the mob, in order to be closer to the bulls and combatants. The real thing is to sit near one of the openings, which enables the fancy-man to exhibit his embroidered gaiters and neat leg. It is here that the character of the bull, the nice traits and the behaviour of the bull-fighter are scientifically criticised. The ring has a dialect peculiar to itself, which is unintelligible to most Spaniards themselves, while to the sporting-men of Andalucia it expresses their drolleries with idiomatic raciness, and is exactly analogous to the slang and technicalities of our pugilistic craft. The newspapers next day generally give a detailed report of the fight, in which every round is scientifically described in a style that defies translation, but which being drawn up by some Spanish Boz, is most delectable to all who can understand it; the nomenclature of praise and blame is defined with the most accurate precision of language, and the delicate shades of character are distinguished with the nicety of phrenological subdivision. The foundation of this lingo is gipsy Romany, metaphor, and double entendre; to master it is no easy matter; indeed, a distinguished diplomat and tauromachian philologist, whom we are proud to call our friend, was often unable to comprehend the full pregnancy of the meaning of certain terms, without a reference to the late Duke of San Lorenzo, who sustained the character of Spanish ambassador in London and of bull-fighter in Madrid with equal dignity; his grace was a living lexicon of slang. Yet let no student be deterred by any difficulty, since he will eventually be repaid, when he can fully relish the Andalucian wit, or sal AndaluÇa, the salt, with which the reports are flavoured: that it is seldom Attic must, however, be confessed. Nor let time or pains be grudged; there is no royal road to Euclid, and life, say the Spanish fancy, is too short to learn bull-fighting. This possibly may seem strange, but English squires and country gentlemen assert as much in regard to fox-hunting.

The day appointed for a bull-feast is announced by placards of all colours; the important particulars decorate every wall. The first thing is to secure a good place beforehand, by sending for a Boletin de Sombra, a shade-ticket; and as the great object is to avoid glare and heat, the best places are on the northern side, which are in the shade. The transit of the sun over the Plaza, the zodiacal progress into Taurus, is decidedly the best calculated astronomical observation in Spain; the line of shadow defined on the arena is marked by a gradation of prices. The different seats and prices are everywhere detailed in the bills of the play, with the names of the combatants and the colours of the different breeds of bulls.

The day before the fight, the bulls destined for the spectacle are driven towards the town, and pastured in a meadow reserved for their reception; then the fine amateurs never fail to ride out to see what the cattle is like, just as the knowing in horseflesh go to Tattersall’s of a Sunday afternoon, instead of attending evening service in their parish churches. According to Pepe Illo, who was a very practical man, and the first author on the modern system of the arena, of which he was the brightest ornament, and on which he died in the arms of victory, the “love of bulls is inherent in man, especially in the Spaniard, among which glorious people there have been bull-fights ever since there were bulls, because the Spanish men are as much more brave than all other men, as the Spanish bull is more fierce and valiant than all other bulls.” Certainly, from having been bred at large, in roomy unenclosed plains, they are more active than the animals raised by John Bull, but as regards form and power they would be scouted in an English cattle-show; a real British bull, with his broad neck and short horns, would make quick work with the men and horses of Spain; his “spears” would be no less effective than the bayonets of our soldiers, which no foreigner faces twice, or the picks of our Navvies, three and three-eighths of whom are calculated by railway economists to eat more beef and do more work than five and five-eighths of corresponding foreign material. By the way, the correct Castilian word for the bull’s horns is astas, the Latin hastas, spears. Cuernos must never be used in good Spanish society, since, from its secondary meaning, it might give offence to present company: allusions to common calamities are never made to ears polite, however frequent among the vulgar, who call things by their improper names—nay, roar them out, as in the time of Horace: “Magn compellens voce cucullum.”

Not every bull will do for the Plaza, and none but the fiercest are selected, who undergo trials from the earliest youth; the most celebrated animals come from Utrera near Seville, and from the same pastures where that eminent breeder of old Geryon, raised those wonderful oxen, which all but burst with fat in fifty days, and were “lifted” by the invincible Hercules. SeÑor Cabrera, the modern Geryon, was so pleased with Joseph Buonaparte, or so afraid, that he offered to him a hundred bulls, as a hecatomb for the rations of his troops, who, braver and hungrier than Hercules, would otherwise have infallibly followed the demigod’s example. The Manchegan bull, small, very powerful, and active, is considered to be the original stock of Spain; of this breed was “Manchangito,” the pet of the Visconde de Miranda, a tauromachian noble of Cordova, and who used to come into the dining-room, but, having one day killed a guest, he was destroyed after violent resistance on the part of the Viscount, and only in obedience to the peremptory mandate of the Prince of the Peace.

The capital is supplied with animals bred in the valleys of the Jarama near Aranjuez, which have been immemorially celebrated. From hence came that Harpado, the magnificent beast of the magnificent Moorish ballad of Gazul, which was evidently written by a practical torero, and on the spot: the verses sparkle with daylight and local colour like a Velazquez, and are as minutely correct as a Paul Potter, while Byron’s “Bull-fight” is the invention of a foreign poet, and full of slight inaccuracies.

The encierro, or the driving the bulls to the arena, is a service of danger; they are enticed by tame oxen, into a road which is barricadoed on each side, and then driven full speed by the mounted and spear-bearing peasants into the Plaza. It is an exciting, peculiar, and picturesque spectacle; and the poor who cannot afford to go to the bull-fight, risk their lives and cloaks in order to get the front places, and best chance of a stray poke en passant.

The next afternoon all the world crowds to the Plaza de toros. You need not ask the way; just launch into the tide, which in these Spanish affairs will assuredly carry you away. Nothing can exceed the gaiety and sparkle of a Spanish public going, eager and full-dressed, to the fight. They could not move faster were they running away from a real one. All the streets or open spaces near the outside of the arena present of themselves a spectacle to the stranger, and genuine Spain is far better to be seen and studied in the streets, than in the saloon. Now indeed a traveller from Belgravia feels that he is out of town, in a new world and no mistake; all around him is a perfect saturnalia, all ranks are fused in one stream of living beings, one bloody thought beats in every heart, one heart beats in ten thousand bosoms; every other business is at an end, the lover leaves his mistress unless she will go with him,—the doctor and lawyer renounce patients, briefs, and fees; the city of sleepers is awakened, and all is life, noise, and movement, where to-morrow will be the stillness and silence of death; now the bending line of the Calle de AlcalÁ, which on other days is broad and dull as Portland Place, becomes the aorta of Madrid, and is scarcely wide enough for the increased circulation; now it is filled with a dense mass coloured as the rainbow, which winds along like a spotted snake to its prey. Oh the din and dust! The merry mob is everything, and, like the Greek chorus, is always on the scene. How national and Spanish are the dresses of the lower classes—for their betters alone appear like Boulevard quizzes, or tigers cut out from our East end tailors’ pattern-book of the last new fashion; what Manolas, what reds and yellows, what fringes and flounces, what swarms of picturesque vagabonds, cluster, or alas, clustered, around calesas, whose wild drivers run on foot, whipping, screaming, swearing; the type of these vehicles in form and colour was Neapolitan; they alas! are also soon destined to be sacrificed to civilization to the ’bus and common-place cab, or vile fly.

The plaza is the focus of a fire, which blood alone can extinguish; what public meetings and dinners are to Britons, reviews and razzias to Gauls, mass or music to Italians, is this one and absorbing bull-fight to Spaniards of all ranks, sexes, ages, for their happiness is quite catching; and yet a thorn peeps amid these rosebuds; when the dazzling glare and fierce African sun calcining the heavens and earth, fires up man and beast to madness, a raging thirst for blood is seen in flashing eyes and the irritable ready knife, then the passion of the Arab triumphs over the coldness of the Goth: the excitement would be terrific were it not on pleasure bent; indeed there is no sacrifice, even of chastity, no denial, even of dinner, which they will not undergo to save money for the bull-fight. It is the birdlime with which the devil catches many a female and male soul. The men go in all their best costume and majo-finery: the distinguished ladies wear on these occasions white lace mantillas, and when heated, look, as the Andaluz wag Adrian said, like sausages wrapped up in white paper; a fan, abanico, is quite as necessary to all as it was among the Romans. The article is sold outside for a trifle, and is made of rude paper, stuck into a handle of common cane or stick, and the gift of one to his nutbrown querida is thought a delicate attention to her complexion from her swarthy swain; at the same time the lower Salamander classes stand fire much better on these occasions than in action, and would rather be roasted fanless alive Á la auto de fe than miss these hot engagements.

The place of slaughter, like the Abattoirs on the Continent, is erected outside the towns, in order to obtain space, and because horned animals when over driven in crowded streets are apt to be ill-mannered, as may be seen every Smithfield market-day in the City, as the Lord Mayor well knows.

The seats occupied by the mob are filled more rapidly than our shilling galleries, and the “gods” are equally noisy and impatient. The anxiety of the immortals, wishes to annihilate time and space and make bull-fanciers happy. Now his majesty the many reigns triumphantly, and this—church excepted—is the only public meeting allowed; but even here, as on the Continent, the odious bayonet sparkles, and the soldier picket announces that innocent amusements are not free; treason and stratagem are suspected by coward despots, when one sole thought of pleasure engrosses every one else. All ranks are now fused into one mass of homogeneous humanity; their good humour is contagious; all leave their cares and sorrows at home, and enter with a gaiety of heart and a determination to be amused, which defies wrinkled care; many and not over-delicate are the quips and quirks bandied to and fro, with an eloquence more energetic than unadorned; things and persons are mentioned to the horror of periphrastic euphuists; the liberty of speech is perfect, and as it is all done quite in a parliamentary way, none take offence. Those only who cannot get in are sad; these rejected ones remain outside grinding their teeth, like the unhappy ghosts on the wrong side of the Styx, and listen anxiously to the joyous shouts of the thrice blessed within.

At Seville a choice box in the shade and to the right of the president is allotted as the seat of honour to the canons of the cathedral, who attend in their clerical costume; and such days are fixed upon for the bull-fight as will not by a long church service prevent their coming. The clergy of Spain have always been the most uncompromising enemies of the stage, where they never go; yet neither the cruelty nor profligacy of the amphitheatre has ever roused the zeal of their most elect or most fanatic: our puritans at least assailed the bear-bait, which induced the Cavalier Hudibras to defend them; so our methodists denounced the bull-bait, which was therefore patronised by the Right Hon. W. Windham, in the memorable debate May 24, 1802, on Mr. Dog Dent. The Spanish clergy pay due deference to bulls, both papal and quadruped; they dislike being touched on this subject, and generally reply “Es costumbre—it is the custom—siempre se ha praticado asi—it has always been done so, or son cosas de EspaÑa, they are things of Spain”—the usual answer given as to everything which appears incomprehensible to strangers, and which they either can’t account for, or do not choose. In vain did St. Isidore write a chapter against the amphitheatre—his chapter minds him not; in vain did Alphonso the Wise forbid their attendance. The sacrifice of the bull has always been mixed up with the religion of old Rome and old and modern Spain, where they are classed among acts of charity, since they support the sick and wounded; therefore all the sable countrymen of Loyola hold to the Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means.