Percy B. Shelley to T. L. P.-Pompeii. incomparable columns were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe to visit those whom it inspired. If such is Pompeii, what was Athens? What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds?-the islands and the Egean sea, the mountains of Argolis, and the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, and the darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed? From the Forum we went to another public place; a triangu lar portico, half enclosing the ruins of an enormous temple. It is built on the edge of the hill overlooking the sea. That black point is the temple. In the apex of the triangle stand an altar and a fountain, and before the altar once stood the statue of the builder of the portico. Returning hence, and following the consular road, we came to the eastern gate of the city. The walls are of enormous strength, and enclose a space of three miles. On each side of the road beyond the gate are built the tombs. How unlike ours! They seem not so much hiding-places for that which must decay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits. They are of marble, radiantly white; and two, especially beautiful, are loaded with exquisite bas-reliefs. On the stucco-wall that encloses them are little emblematic figures, of a relief exceedingly low, of dead and dying animals, and little winged genii, and female forms bending in groups in some funereal office. The higher reliefs represent, one a nautical subject, and the other a bacchanalian one. Within the cell stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes more. It is said that paintings were found within; which are now, as has been every thing movable in Pompeii, removed, and scattered about in royal museums. These tombs were the most impressive things of all. The wild Robert Southey to Lieut. Southey-Bull-fight at Lisbon. woods surround them on either side; and along the broad stones of the paved road which divides them, you hear the late leaves of autumn shiver and rustle in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it were like the step of ghosts. The radiance and magnificence of these dwellings of the dead, the white freshness of the scarcely finished marble, the impassioned or imaginative life of the figures which adorn them, contrast strangely with the simplicity of the houses of those who were living when Vesuvius overwhelmed them. I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is of great magnitude, though much inferior to the Coliseum. I now understand why the Greeks were such great poets; and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform excellence, of all their works of art. They lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature, and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theatres were all open to the mountains and the sky. Their columns, the ideal types of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admitted the light and wind; the odor and the freshness of the country penetrated the cities. Their temples were mostly upaithric; and the flying clouds, the stars, or the deep sky, were seen above. XIII.—BULL-FIGHT AT LISBON. Robert Southey to Lieut. Southey. LISBON, June 22d, 1800. MY DEAR TOM: We are just returned from a bull-feast, and I write to you while the feelings occasioned by this spectacle are fresh. I had never before seen one. The buffoonery of teazing Robert Southey to Lieut. Southey-Bull-fight at Lisbon. bullocks at Madrid was rather foolish than cruel, and its extreme folly excited laughter, as much at the spectators as the thing itself. This is widely different. The hand-bill was pompous: "Antonio de Cordeiro, who had so distinguished himself last year, was again to perform. The entertainment would deserve the approbation of a generous public. Ten bulls were to be killed, four to be tormented; they were picked bulls, of the Marquis de 's breed (I forget his name), and chosen out for their courage and ferocity." Yesterday the bull-fighters paraded the streets, as you may have seen rope-dancers and the "equestrian troop" at Bristol fair. They were strangely disfigured with masques: one fellow had a paunch and a Punchhumpback, and all were dressed in true tawdry style. Hot weather is always the season, and Sunday always the day, the amusement being cool and devout! At half after four it began; the hero was on horseback, and half a dozen men on foot to assist him; about ten more sat with pitchforks to defend themselves, ready when wanted. The bulls were all in the area till the amusement opened. They were not large, and not the same breed as in England; they had more the face of the cow than the short, sulky look of gentlemen-quiet, harmless animals, whom a child might safely have played with, and a woman would have been ashamed to fear. So much for their ferocity! Courage, indeed, they possessed; they attacked only in self-defence, and you would, like me, have been angry to see a fellow with a spear provoking a bull whose horns were tipped with large balls, the brave beast, all bleeding with wounds, still facing him with reluctant resistance. Once I saw crackers stuck into his neck to irritate him, and heard them burst in his wounds: you will not wonder that I gave the Portuguese a hearty and honest Robert Southey to Lieut. Southey-Bull-fight at Lisbon. English curse. It is not an affair of courage; the horse is trained, the bull's horns muffled, and half a dozen fellows, each ready to assist the other, and each with a cloak, on which the poor animal wastes his anger; they have the rails to leap over, also, and they know that when they drop the cloak he aims always at that; there is, therefore, little danger of a bruise, and none of any thing else. The amusement is, therefore, as cowardly as cruel. I saw nine killed; the first wound sickened Edith, and my own eyes were not always fixed upon the area. My curiosity was not, perhaps, strictly excusable, but the pain which I endured was penalty enough. The fiercest of the whole was one of the four who were only tormented; two fellows on asses attacked him with goads, and he knocked them over and over with much spirit; two more came on, standing each in the middle of a painted horse, ridiculously enough-and I fancy those fellows will remember him for the next fortnight whenever they turn in bed and their sham horses were broken to pieces. Three dogs were loosed at another bull, and effectually sickened. I hate bull-dogs; they are a surly, vicious breed, ever ready to attack, mischievous and malicious enough to deserve Parliamentary praise from Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Canning. A large theatre was completely full; men, women, and children were clapping their hands at every wound, and watching with delight the struggles of the dying beasts. It is a damnable sport! and much to the honor of the English here, they all dislike it; very rarely does an Englishman or Englishwoman witness it a second time. You will find in Thalaba one accurate image which I observed this evening: a death-sweat darkening the dun hide of the animal. This amusement must have mischievous effects; it Robert Southey to Lieut. Southey-Bull-fight at Lisbon. makes cruelty familiar; and as for the assertion that bull-baiting or bull-butchering keeps up the courage of the nation, only Wyndham and Canning could have been absurd enough and unfeeling enough to believe it; if it were true, the Spaniards ought to be the bravest nation in the world, because their amusement is the most cruel, and a butcher ought to make the best soldier. On Thursday we go to Cintra; this, therefore, will be my last letter of Lisbon anecdote. In Africa a Portuguese saw an orang-outang, the most human beast that has yet been discovered, walking quietly with a stick in his hand; he had the wickedness to shoot him, and was not, as he ought to have been, hung for wilful murder. The head and hands were sent here; I have seen them in the Museum, in spirits. I have seen many an uglier fellow pass for a man, in spite of the definition that makes him a reasoning animal: he has eyebrows and a woolly head, almost like a negro's, but the face not black. Fielding died and was buried here. By a singular fatality, four attempts have been made to erect a monument, and all have miscarried. A Frenchman set on foot a subscription for this purpose, and many of the factory engaged for one, two, or three moidores; circumstances took him from Lisbon, and this dropped. Another Frenchman had a monument made at his own expense, and paid for it; there was a fine French inscription, that, as his own countrymen had never given the great Fielding a monument, it was reserved for a Frenchman to honor his country by paying that respect to genius; he also went away, and is now following the French Pretender; and his monument lies among masonry and rubbish, where I have sought for it in vain. Then De Visme undertook the affair; and the bust of |