These festivals, however, never had the same character as the Greek. The national character of the Romans, stern, martial, and practical, knew not how to introduce the element of beauty into their shows, though many of them, particularly the Naumachia, were very expensive and brilliant. On the contrary, the longer they were celebrated, and the more their number increased, the more savage they became-the more entirely devoted to gratify an inhuman taste, that delighted in horrors. In the time of Trajan, after his victory over the Dacians, combats of wild beasts. and gladiators were exhibited for a hundred and twenty-three days in succession, in which eleven thousand beasts of every description, and not less than ten thousand gladiators, were engaged. Dio. 48. 15. At these shows, as at the English races, large sums were betted among the spectators. Martial, ix. 68. Suetonius, Tit. 8. We shudder to think of the numerous and corrupt populace, who were entertained, for such a length of time, with such inhuman spectacles. In fact, our only consolation in reading the reigns of the monsters who swayed the Roman sceptre in the decline of Roman power, is, that the people were as corrupt as the masters-a wretched source of consolation, truly! All the Roman games, when we examine them, are found to be only spectacles exhibited to the people, not festivals, in which, as among the Greeks, the people took part.

As the Roman character, (to return to the better times of the republic,) gave to their games a character entirely different from that of the Greek festivals, gymnastics also, among them, always remained in a comparatively rude state, and hardly deserved the name of an art, being almost confined, with the exception perhaps of riding and swimming, to military recruits. We have already observed, that they held swimming in the highest esteem, and will only remark at present, as a consideration deserving the attention of medical men, that the young men, soldiers and others, when heated by active exercise, plunged immediately into the Tiber. Riding was likewise much valued, and was probably taught systematically at an early period. The soldiers, as we learn from Vegetius, were instructed in many useful things, which are now little regarded, in comparison with clean uniforms and white top-knots. They learned to run, to swim, to carry heavy burdens, and to handle their weapons. Vegetius mentions, in a very interesting passage, that the elder Romans made the recruits practise the sword exercise against standing posts, so that they learned the thrust, the most important stroke, in preference to the downward blow, which does little injury, and leaves the body exposed. In fact, he explains with sufficient clearness the principles of fencing with the smallsword. Vegetius, lib. i. How early this mode of fighting was understood among the Romans, we know not. We can easily imagine,

that they soon observed, that only inexperienced soldiers use the edge of the weapon, and expose their own persons to little effect, hitting only the less vulnerable parts of an antagonist's frame, such as the head and shoulders, while the more practised warrior prefers the thrust, because he can hit the less protected parts, as the breast and belly, with comparatively little exposure of himself. A cut of great length, and considerable depth, often does no considerable injury, but a thrust of half an inch is frequently fatal. We learn from Polybius, book iii., that the Romans used the Spanish sword, which is short, sharp-pointed, and double-edged.

When all the acquisitions of the human intellect were lost for a season, and much for ever, in the utter depravity of the latter ages of the Roman empire, and the ensuing irruption of wandering tribes, which may well be called the second deluge, the gymnastic art perished, and for a long time remained wholly unheard of. We may date its revival from the commencement of tournaments, because bodily exercises were then taught again systematically, and great skill in riding, as well as the management of the sword, the lance, and mace, was required in the competitor at these martial games. The first tournaments were held in the ninth or tenth centuries in France, and may have had their origin in the military games of the Romans, aided by the martial spirit of the descendants of the German conquerors of France. They received their full perfection, however, from the spirit of chivalry. The first tournaments were fought with blunt weapons, which were called "armes gracieuses," or weapons of courtesy. Some late writers, and among them the celebrated German author Herder, ascribe to tournaments an Arabian origin. But this is, on many accounts, improbable, though the spirit of generous warfare which marked the Saracens, may have contributed much to the development of romantic knighthood, and thereby increased the splendour of the tournament. we compare these shows with the games of the ancients, we perceive that the competitors were not a class of professional athletæ, though the strife was often exceedingly violent. It is somewhere related, that in a tournament celebrated at the elevation of Conrad the first to the imperial throne, several knights were left dead in the lists. And Albert of Brandenburg, surnamed Achilles, is said to have fought often, we believe eleven times, with sharp weapons, scharf gerannt, as the German phrase is to express combats in the tourney, with the weapons and the fury of war.

About the year 1066, Gottfried of Preuelly collected the rules and customs of tournaments into a code, which was afterwards generally adopted. At a later period, the character of these celebrations degenerated, so that they were finally prohibited by the

Pope and the Emperor, as the Roman ludi had been several times prohibited by the Emperors.

It is interesting to compare the character of the Grecian games, the Roman ludi, and the tournament of the middle ages. The Greek games were religious in their nature, insomuch as to be denominated go, sacred. A religious spirit and a love of the beautiful, constituted their ruling principle, as we before stated; and if the spectacles which they exhibited were sometimes barbarous in our view, we must remember that this was not their object, and that a Greek athlete, before he entered the arena at the Olympic Games, in the oath which he took at the altar of Jupiter over a victim newly slain, was obliged to swear, among other things, not voluntarily to kill his antagonist. In the games of the Roman circus, the prevailing principle was an avidity for savage contests, and horrid indeed were the combats of the trained gladiators and condemned criminals, where life depended on the issue. At these spectacles women were present, as they were likewise at the tournament, of which romantic love was a powerful element. Among the Greeks, women were long excluded from the Olympic Games, under pain of death.

In the course of time, the tournament, and with it the institution of chivalry, declined. This was partly owing to the superiority which infantry began to acquire over cavalry, as they always do, with the advance of civilization and scientific tactics;* partly to the invention of gunpowder, which rendered the armour of the knight useless. As armour went out of use, the smallsword came into fashion. How soon fencing with the smallsword assumed the character of an art, we know not. The first treatises upon this subject, appeared in the sixteenth century. The Italians were the first teachers, and several famous schools soon grew up, among which, the German were distinguished from the French and Italian, by the introduction of a peculiar sort of thrusts, called "festestossen," firm thrusts; and also, by a different position of the body. The distinction still remains. The two-handed sword went by degrees out of use, though rules for its management were still given in the books of fencing. The straight broadsword was, and still is, common in Germany, owing perhaps to the neighbourhood of the Sclavonish nations, who all use the cut and not the thrust. Their weapon, however, is the crooked sabre. At the same time with fencing, vaulting began to be practised. The Romans perhaps knew something of this art, since we read that the games of the circus were usually in

We believe it almost universally true, that barbarous nations, if they have horses, and the skill to use them, place their main dependence on cavalry, and that the superiority of infantry is not understood and acknowledged until considerable progress has been made in civilization. Vide Machiavelli's Treatises on

the Art of War.

troduced by horsemen, who displayed their agility by leaping on and off their steeds, and hence were called Desultores, Liv. xxiii. 29; and Vegetius informs us, that recruits were taught to spring quickly into the saddle. The present art of vaulting is, however, a modern invention, and carried to most perfection in France. In the salles d'armes of the middle ages, fighting with the dagger, and even with the knife, was taught; and in Holland particularly, much skill was attained in this latter mode of fencing. It was customary for men who prided themselves on their adroitness in knife fighting, on entering a tavern, to stick up a knife by the door, as a challenge to all comers, and to take down the knife was to accept the challenge. Wrestling also was taught in the middle ages; and the numerous festal meetings of that period, afforded sufficient opportunity for learning it without much regular instruction. Many treatises were written on it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from which we learn, that it was often practised in connexion with boxing, forming the same compound as the ancient pancratium. The famous painter, Albert Durer, wrote a book which he called Armorum tractandorum meditatio Alberti Dureri, Anno 1412. His treatise contains observations on knife fighting, among the other branches. It was never printed, and still exists in manuscript, at Breslaw, in the Magdalen library.

Modern horsemanship had its origin in Italy. The first rid ing-school was established at Naples. In the reign of King Henry VIII., this art was introduced into England. Running, shooting, hurling, leaping, were nowhere taught systematically, but much importance was attached to proficiency in them, in many parts of Europe, on account of the numerous popular meetings, like those which still prevail in Switzerland, where several villages engage in a friendly struggle for superiority in athletic exercises. Children, too, had festive meetings for the purpose of competition in active sports during the middle ages, and even at the present day, an acquaintance of ours saw young maidens with kilted coats, run races at a festival in Mecklenburg.

Swimming at this period was not taught as an art. Where there were convenient places for bathing, children naturally learned it. Elsewhere little pains was taken to instruct them in this useful branch of gymnastics. In many parts of Europe, during the middle ages, there were, as in our time, games played upon the water, in which the antagonists were placed each in a little boat, with another man to row it, and made thrusts at one another with poles, the object being to push the opposing party into the water; but such sports, like all other active exercises, became afterwards too much neglected, as being an unprofitable waste of time.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, gymnastics declined, as effeminate pleasures came into fashion, and were su

perseded by theatres, balls, &c. Riding, fencing, vaulting, and dancing, alone remained, and even these were gradually neglected by the people, and confined to the nobility. On this account, these exercises were sometimes called the exercises of the nobles. In England, where the nobles never formed so distinct a caste as in the other countries of Europe, the branches of gymnastics which still remained, were more generally practised.

The history of modern pugilism we are ignorant of, though we have made inquiries respecting it in England. The Greeks had, besides the combats with the cæstus, a sort of exercise in which they fought with gloves, termed from this circumstance sphæromachia. They used, however, as far as we can learn, the downward stroke rather than the forward, which is now adopted as the most effective. As the skilful boxer is always furnished with natural arms, which secure him the victory over an unpractised assailant, this art should be taught in the schools of exercise, as also that of staff-fighting, the national game of the French, as much as boxing is of the English.

Gymnastics, at the time we are speaking of, were no longer regarded as a necessary branch of education; and civil rulers concerned themselves little about the physical culture of the young. In fact, gymnastics would have been out of place, in the age of perukes and hair-powder.

In the last century, when men broke loose from the yoke of authority, and thinking and thoughtless heads began to speculate deeply or frivolously on the existing order of things, education began to receive its share of attention, and the better sort of teachers saw that gymnastics must soon be introduced among the other branches of instruction. Salzmann, a German clergyman, was the first instructer of youth, at whose school, in Tuhringen, in the heart of Germany, bodily exercises were taught by a master of the name of Gutsmuth, in the latter part of the last century. These were principally running, leaping, swimming, climbing, balancing. Gutsmuth wrote a book upon the new gymnastics, which, considering it as the first work on the subject, is a very respectable treatise, and still retains its value.

The results of this system of exercises, are deserving of consideration. In thirty-two years, three hundred and thirty-four scholars, from various nations, were educated at this institution, three of them of royal blood, and not one scholar died there. Seven or eight families also were connected with the establishment; and from these, only three children died during the same time, and two of these were under a year old.

In some few establishments, this example was imitated; but the times appeared not ripe for the introduction of so important an improvement; the age was too effeminate, and the formal