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bellows with agonizing pain, streams of black gore burst from the wound and mouth, his haggard looks proclaim his tortured state, the dreadful steel entering at the collar-bone has searched the source of life, his feeble limbs deny support, he sinks and struggles in the dust. Incessant peals of applause re-echo through the vast circle, and frantic acclamations, such as resounded at the Olympic games of the Greeks, or the gladiatorial scenes of the Romans. The most lively and animated music joins the loud sound, but is nearly drowned by the plaudits of the mob. Three mules yoked together, and ornamented with gay streamers, drag the mangled and bloody carcase from the area, and every preparation is made for a repetition of the same sport, which only varies according to the courage of the men and the fury of the bull. Ten or sixteen are often killed in an evening, and the amusement, from neither its sameness nor disgusting scenes, appears to tire; as many horses often fall, and the men are frequently killed or maimed. Romero was the most famous matador the Spaniards every had, and his end was shocking. The meat is exposed for sale, but bought only by the common people. The scene is often varied by the fighting of two horses, which is indeed grand, and, though horrid, has something in it noble and fierce. They some times let loose the wild boar, the stag, and other animals, to fight dogs; and if a bull will not face the combatants, dogs are let loose upon him, which becomes quite an English bull-bait. The last bull is embolado, or his horns are tipped with wood; the common people all rush out, cling to the horns and tail, and wrestle with him in bodies. The entertainment is often closed with fire-works, and the interval is agreeably filled up by all the men striking their flints and steels, which they always carry, and which give a most curious gleam around. Part of the funds arising from these entertainments belongs to the hospitals

of St. John of God, the other pays the expenses. The amphitheatre in Cadiz is of wood, holds ten or twelve thousand people, and belongs to the city. It is rented to a company under great restrictions, but this cannot hinder frequent impositions on the public. Those in Madrid, Seville, and Grenada, are of stone, and of royal foundation. In the smaller cities where they have none, they use the market squares, but on a very paltry scale. Indians from South America often display their feats with a leathern thong, with which they dexterously entangle the bull, and throw him on his back, when they mount, and by their dexterity render vain the exertions of the animal to shake off the unusual load. Many gypsies are amongst the foot combatants. Their pay is from ten to sixty dollars an afternoon, according to merit. That side of the amphitheatre on which the afternoon sun beats is only half price. There is a small difference in the several cities, but in all these are the leading traits.

To foreigners, accustomed to see the dexterous feats of equestrian riders, such diversions appear uninteresting and barbarous; and from the continual danger to which the riders and the horses are exposed, the feeling mind can derive no satisfaction. Even in this age of refined philosophy, man seems to be glad to multiply means for the extinction of his own species, which from the brute creation he might learn to husband. This familiarity with scenes of blood darkens the traits of the national character; and were a revolution to agitate the people, it would possibly be more sanguinary than we have yet witnessed. Government has often wished to abolish this practice, but in vain; it is so generally relished. It is astonishing that the Spanish ladies enjoy this sport, so savagely monotonous. Possessed of susceptibility and the finest feelings in nature, with every sense in unison with delicacy and sentiment, one would imagine they would fly it as a bane;

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THE Russian gentlemen have almost adopted the same manner of living as that of the other nations of Europe. The citizens being, for the most part, slaves who have been made free, retain, in a great measure, the manners of their primitive state, and are very few in number. It is amongst the peasants, therefore, that we must look for the true national character of the Russians. Some of them are slaves of the crown; and the rest, who form the greater number, are slaves to the great lords, who have every power over them, except that of life and death. The Russian peasants were originally free; but about the middle of the sixteenth century they were made part of every estate, in order to prevent emigration. Since that period a custom has prevailed of treating them entirely as serfs, of selling and buying them, and of transferring them as property in any other manner, Their yoke, however, is much easier than that of the peasants of Livonia, because the Livonian gentlemen consider theirs as procured by conquest, while the Russian peasants have the same origin as their masters.

The ordinary food of the Russian peasants, besides bread, is the schutschi; that is to say, a kind of soup made of cabbage, rendered sour by fermentation, and hashed very small this soup is, for the most part, accompanied with a piece of boiled meat. Their drink is kivas, a sort of sour, yellowish small beer, which they brew themselves in large earthen pans. Their dress consists of a shirt, always very neat,

which hangs over their breeches, a linen frock, a surtout shaped like their frock, and made of coarse woollen cloth; the whole descends as low as their knees, and is fastened to the body with a girdle. In winter, instead of a surtout, they wear a cloak of sheep's skin; their heads are bare in summer, and in winter covered with a cap.

They wear no covering to their necks either winter or summer; their legs are wrapt up in bandages of cloth; but they use, shoes, or rather a kind of slippers, made of the rind of trees, cut into slips, which are interwoven together. The women are dressed almost in the same manner as the men, but their exterior garments are loose, and not fastened with a girdle; they are also very long, and reach down to their feet.

Their wooden huts have all a perfect resemblance one to another. They are built in villages, bordering the highway, are placed parallel to it, and are covered with boards. Nothing is seen but a wall formed of planks, having two or three holes in it, which serve as windows. These windows are only large enough for one to put the head through them. They are seldom filled with squares of glass; but in the inside there is a piece of wood to shut them during the night, or in the time of bad weather. On one side of the hut is a small gate, which conducts to a yard, the greater part of which is covered with wooden planks, to shelter their carts, hay, &c. From the yard you enter the house by a back door, to which you go up by a few steps, and, when you have opened the door, you find in the first corner, towards the right hand, a stove constructed of bricks, which serves them for culinary purposes, and to warm the apartment. Around the stove, and on a level with its top, runs a circular projection, upon which the family sleep, and take a forenoon nap, as well as on the stove itself, however warm it may be; for they are remarkably fond

of excessive heat. In the corner opposite to the stove, in a diagonal direction, that is to say, in the corner on the left, stands a small wooden shelf at about the height of a man, containing a few images of their saints, ranged in order, and surrounded by small wax candles or lamps, which are lighted on certain festivals; the drapery of these saints is embossed, and formed of tin plate or of copper, gilt; but the visage, the hands, the feet, and in general all the naked parts, are only painted. The Russians pretend that they are authorised to have painted images, but none of carved work, because the commandment says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." All around the hut is a large wooden bench, made for sitting or sleeping upon. Nearer the door than the saints, and to the left as you enter, there is a long table, formed of two boards, joined together lengthways, and before it, on one side, the bench already mentioned, and on the other a portable bench much narrower. The rest of the furniture consists of a wooden bason, suspended from the roof, on one side of the stove, in order to wash their hands whenever cleanliness requires it, a wooden platter, two or three wooden dishes, and a few wooden spoons. As the hut forms only one apartment, all mix together without any distinction: one may see sleeping on the earth, on the bench, or on the top of the stove, the master of the house, the mistress, the children, and servants, both male and female, and all without any scandal. In some huts, however, there is a particular corner for the master and mistress, but it is separated from the rest only by a curtain, suspended from a pole placed in a horizontal direction. These huts have no chimnies; the smoke, therefore, renders them exceedingly black in the inside. If they are entered at the time when the mistress of the family is preparing dinner, the smoke and the smell of the onions, which they use in all

their dishes, do not fail to make those sick who are not accustomed to them. When the smoke becomes too powerful to be resisted, they open a small wicket, which is a little higher than the window, in order to give it vent; but these peasants do this with reluctance, as they fear that part of the heat may escape at the same time; they are fond of being, as it were, roasted in their huts.

These peasants supply all their own wants; they make their own shoes, benches, tables, wooden dishes, and construct their own stoves and huts. The females also weave a kind of cloth, which resembles a very broad riband; they have occasion, therefore, to buy only a little woollen cloth or sheep skins to cover them, their girdles, which they consider as objects of great luxury, and the iron they employ for their implements of husbandry.

The Russian peasants are temperate in eating, but not in drinking: they are extremely fond of strong liquors, and often get intoxicated, especially on their festivals. They think they would not show their respect for their saints, did they not honour them by getting drunk; and they have a word to express the state in which one finds one's-self next day. They call this state, between health and sickness, spoklemelie; the women are addicted to drinking as well as the men. They cannot be accused of laziness, but they consider labour as a necessary evil, and never execute any piece of work thoroughly, contenting themselves with finishing it in a very imperfect manner; for this reason, therefore, they scratch up the ground, instead of tilling it. They are fond of keeping their persons neat: however dirty their upper garments may be, their shirts are always clean; they have warm or vaporated baths, into which the men and women, boys and girls, without distinction, plunge themselves two or three times a week. An order has lately been made, forbidding different sexes to mix to

gether promiscuously in these baths; but this order is very little observed. They marry when very young, and often even at the command of their masters. Paternal authority among them is very great, and it continues during the lives of their children; a father may give a blow with a stick to his son, of whatever age or condition he may be. We are told, that an old peasant having gone to visit his son, who had made a fortune in the army, and who enjoyed a considerable rank, the latter was so proud of his promotion, that he ordered his domestics to send the old man about his business. The father, however, having found means to enter the house when none of the servants were in the way, took a large cudgel, and gave his son a sound beating; nor did the son, so powerful was parental authority, dare to defend himself, or call out for assistance.

The people in Russia are very hospitable. A Russian peasant, when on a journey, enters whatever house he chuses, makes the sign of the cross before an image, salutes the company, and lays down his knapsack without any ceremony. If he find the family at table, he says, bread and salt; upon which the master of the house replies, eat my bread, and the stranger immediately places himself among the company. If he happen to arrive when the people are not at meals, he sits down among the rest, without any formality, at the proper time. If it be in the evening, he sleeps in the hut, and the next morning departs very early without saying a word: if the family are up, he says,

I thank you for bread and salt. A stranger who is travelling meets with almost the same hospitality, if he can be satisfied with the usual fare of these peasants; if he cannot, he must pay the full price for every thing extraordinary; he pays also for the hay which his horses have eaten; but the price is always moderate.

Whatever little money these peasants acquire, they place it behind

their images, and commit it to their care. Robbery is never heard of among them, although the doors of their huts are always open, and often left without any person to guard them. However disinterested the Russians may be naturally, they soon become fond of money, especially when they begin to trade; they have then a perfect resemblance of the Jews; they are as exorbitant in the prices which they ask, and equally ready to take every advantage; but, at the same time, they are equally disposed to sell with a small profit, when they cannot get rid of their goods in any other manner.

These peasants are not sullen, like those of Germany; they speak much, are very polite, and even sometimes to excess. Their mode of saluting is by shaking one another by the hand, and by bowing. Their equals they call brothers, and their superiors they call fathers. Before their lords, and before those from whom they ask a favour, they prostrate themselves, that is to say, stretch themselves out at their length on the ground. These Rus sians have very little ambition. If you speak to them with mildness, you may obtain from them whatever you desire; and they will not be offended when you call them knaves and cheats, and even much worse. They are very honest; but when they cease to be so, one cannot use too much precaution not to be a dupe to their promises. Their minds receive very little cultivation, for they can neither read nor write; all their learning consists in a few proverbs, which they transmit from father to son. They are fond of vocal music, and are always singing. The labourer sings behind his plough, the coachman on his box, and the carpenter on the roof of the hut where he is at work; their songs are generally upon love, and their music is very monotonous.

The religion of the Russians is that of the Greek church; that of these peasants consists in going to hear mass, in prostrating themselves

evening and morning before their images, saying, Ghospodi pomiloui! Lord have pity upon me! in mak ing the sign of the cross before and after meals, or when passing a church; and, lastly, in observing lent.

This last article is absolutely indispensable; a Russian peasant is firmly persuaded that God would sooner pardon murder than a violalation of lent. Their priests are equally ignorant as themselves; all their learning consists in knowing their ritual pretty well, and being able to give a benediction, even in the streets, to those who ask it, gratis, or for the value of a penny or halfpenny.

one

One village has sometimes more than one church, and churches are in general very numerous in Russia, because it is a work of great merit to found one. The ringing of bells is here almost continual, as it is thought to be a part of religious service. Besides churches, finds on the highways small chapels, images covered by little wooden houses, and springs of water accounted sacred or miraculous, which have generally small chapels in their neighbourhood. The present empress has formed a plan for gradually instructing these people, by sending schoolmasters among them, and priests to enlarge their ideas with respect to religion.

For the Literary Magazine.

ГОРЕ SIXTUS THE FIFTH AND THE SHOEMAKER.

An Italian Anecdote.

THE life of this pope exhibits one of those extraordinary instances, in which genius and talents have lifted their possessors far above the disadvantages concomitant to a humble birth and indigent circumstances, and have enabled them to counteract adversity, or rather to

command fortune. It was therefore, while he was cardinal, well said by him to an Italian prince, over whom, in a dispute, he had so manifestly the advantage as to excite the admiration of the company, and who consequently, irritated to the greatest degree, exclaimed, "I wonder at your arrogance, who are only the son of a swineherd!"

True, my lord! and if it had been your misfortune to have been born the son of a swineherd, you would have still continued in that capacity."

That he was the son of a swineherd is a fact. He was born at Montalto, in the marshes of Ancona. His parents called him Felix; but he left them, and at the age of fourteen took the habit of St. Francis, and became a friar in the convent of Ascoli. The quickness of his parts soon raised him high in the sodality; though it must be observed, that it was composed of members who have not been recorded as the brightest of mankind. However, they had sense enough to distinguish his merit, and candour enough to acknowledge it, except in one instance, when some of the younger students, girded perhaps by the su periority of his genius, retorted upon him ironically, "that in the astrological question before them they must yield to him: he certainly knew more of houses than they did, his father's being so illustrious." To this sarcasm he replied with great good nature, that "his father's house was indeed illustrious, for the interior of it was illuminated by the rays of the sun, which darted through every aperture of the boards of which it was composed*."

Improving his talents, he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and, at a public disputation in the presence of cardinal Carpi, who was then protector of the Franciscan order, acquitted himself so well, and acquir

* This passage will be better understood, if we reflect that in Italy all the buildings of any importance are of stone.

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