The fugitive, through terrer at a stand, Mute with astonishment th' assembly gaze : 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: 6. He heard it but he heeded not-his eyes 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. The hunting tribes of air and earth, The falcon, pois'd on soaring wing, 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 |