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The fugitive, through terrer at a stand,
Dar'd not awhile afford his trembling hand,
But bolder grown, at length inherent found
A pointed thorn, and drew it from the wound.
The cure was wrought; he wip'd the sanious blood,
And firm and free from pain the lion stood.
Again he seeks the wilds, and day by day,
Regales his inmate with the parted prey.
Nor he disdains the dole, though unprepar'd,
Spread on the ground, and with a lion shar'd.
But thus to live-still lost-sequester'd still—
Scarce seem'd his lord's revenge an heavier ill.
Home! native home! O might he but repair!
He must-he will, though death attends him there.
He goes, and doom'd to perish on the sands
Of the full Theatre unpitied stands :
When lo! the self-samc lion from his cage
Flies to devour him, famish'd into rage.
He flies, but viewing in his purposed prey
The man, his healer, pauses on his way,
And soften'd by remembrance into sweet
And kind composure, crouches at his feet.

Mute with astonishment th' assembly gaze :
But why, ye Romans? Whence your mute amaze?
All this is nat'ral: nature bade him rend
An enemy; she bids him spare a friend.

This story is prettily told in the preceding verses by Mr. Cowper. Androcles was a Roman slave, a fugitive or runaway. The laws against fugitive slaves were very severe. This poor man sought his safety in the deserts of Lybia: here he formed his affecting friendship with the lion, but at length the horrors of his solitary state tempted him to return to his severe master. He hoped, perhaps,

that he might be forgiven; but he was disappointed: he was compelled to fight with wild beasts. He was doomed to perish on the sands of the full theatre. The ground of the theatre was covered with sand, and called the Arena. This contention of men and beasts was a public amusement of the Romans.

2. The Romans had another shocking exhibition, the contests of the Gladiators. These gladiators beat one another till one confessed himself conquered and begged for his life; but many chose to die rather than to do this, and if the defeated one did entreat mercy, the people often demanded that he should be killed, and then his antagonist could not grant his life. The first exhibition of gladiators was at a funeral, nearly five hundred years before Christ. Only a few pairs were exhibited at first, but the Romans became so fond of this cruel recreation, that the number of combatants was continually increased from year to year Julius Cæsar, not a century before Christ, exhibited three hundred and twenty pairs, and the emperor Trajan, not two centuries after, presented his subjects with the spectacle of a thousand pairs, who contended during one hundred and twenty days.

3. When Christianity was established in Rome, this cruel practice did not entirely cease. The following is an account of its final suppression: "In the

year 404 they were exhibiting the shows in the Flavian Amphitheatre, before an immense concourse of people. Telemachus, an eastern monk, travelled to Rome with the holy purpose of putting an end to these savage spectacles, and rushing into the midst of the Arena, endeavoured to separate

the combatants. One of the magistrates instantly gave orders that Telemachus should be slain, and he fell a victim to his humanity. The emperor Honorius afterwards abolished the gladiatorial shows."

4. Disobedient slaves were often compelled to contend in the Arena, and people permitted themselves to be hired for this desperate strife, hoping to be victorious. The Thracians, after 'Thrace became subject to Rome, a hardy, strong and ferocious race of men, were preferred as gladiators.— The English poet, Lord Byron, has given a fine de scription of a dying gladiator.

5. "I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low-
And through his side the life drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him-he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the
wretch who won.

6. He heard it but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away.
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday."

7. The theatres in the early ages of Rome were only rude wooden buildings, but they were afterwards very costly edifices. The emperor Vespasian, and his son Titus, a few years after the death

of Christ, erected an immense amphitheatre, called the Coliseum. The Coliseum was a wall of an oval form without a roof. This wall was built, "arches on arches" four stories high, it enclosed an area 550 feet in length, 470 in breadth, and its height was 160. The seats were disposed within the wall so as to accommodate 80,000 spectators.

This vast and wonderous monument" yet stands in ruins, and is an object which no one can behold without many melancholy thoughts.

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The hunting tribes of air and earth,
Respect the brethren of their birth;
Nature who loves the claim of kind,
Less cruel chase to each assigned.

The falcon, pois'd on soaring wing,
Watches the wild-duck of the spring;
The slow-hound wakes the fox's lair,
The greyhound presses on the hare;
The eagle pounces on the lamb,
The wolf devours the fleecy dam;
Even tyger fell, and sullen bear,
'Their likeness and their lineage spare.
Man, only, mars kind nature's plan,
And turns the fierce pursuit on man;
Plying war's desultory trade,
Incursion, flight and ambuscade,
Since Nimrod, Cush's mighty son
At first the bloody game begun.

Predatory animals are those which subsist upon the destruction of other animals. Some of the predatory animals and their prey are pointed out in the verses above cited. Animals of the same species do not prey upon each other. They some times fight among themselves, but this is "when man disturbs the economy of nature's realm"that is, when men take the lower animals from a wild state, and domesticate them, and excite them to hurt one another: as cocks are made to fight, as hungry dogs contend for food; and as pigeons, when they are kept in flocks, and are accidentally mis-mated, tear each other-but brute animals, naturally spare their own kind.

2. While the people of Europe were in that state of ignorance which existed among them about 700 years ago, and indeed in later times, there were not only public but private wars. A public war is declared by the government of one country against that of another, and the governments of each of

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