fad trimmings of their chins: and, in order to be never feparated from thefe dear locks, gave orders that they fhould be placed with them in their coffins.

Example, more powerful than authority, produced in Spain what it had not been able to bring about in Ruffia without great difficulty. Philip V. af cended the throne with a thaved chin. The courtiers imitated the prince, and the people, in turn, the courtiers. How ever, tho' this revolution was brought about without violence, and by degrees, it caused much lamentation and murmuring; the gravity of the Spaniards loft much by the change. The favourite custom of a nation can never be altered without incurring difpleasure. They have this old faying in Spain: Defde que no hay barba no hay mas alma. Since we have loft our beards, we have loft our fouls."

Among the European nations that have been moft curious in beards and whiskers, we muft diftinguifh Spain. This grave romantic nation has always regarded the beard as the ornament moft to be prized; and the Spaniards have often made the lofs of honour confift in that of their whiskers. The Portuguefe, whofe national character is much the fame, are not the least behind them in that refpect. In the reign of Catherine, queen of Portugal, the brave John de Čuftro had just taken in India the caftle of Diu: victorious, but in want of every thing, he found himself obliged to ask the inhabitants of Goa to lend him a thousand piftoles for the maintenance of his fleet; and, as a fecurity for that fum, he fent them one of his whiskers, telling them, "All the gold in the world cannot equal the value of this natural ornament of my valour; and I depofit it in your hands as a fecurity for the money." The whole town was penetrated with this heroifm, and every one interested himself about this invaluable whisker: even the women were defirous to give marks of their zeal for fo brave a man: feveral fold their bracelets to increafe the fum asked for; and the inhabitants of Goa fent him immediately both the money and his whifker. A number of other examples of this kind might be produced, which do as much honour

to whiskers as to the good faith of those days,

In Louis XIIIth's reign, whiskers attained the highest degree of favour, at the expence of the expiring beards. In those days of gallantry, not yet em. poifoned by wit, they became the fa. vourite occupation of lovers. A fine black whisker, elegantly turned up, was a very powerful mark of dignity with the fair fex. Whiskers were still in fashion in the beginning of Louis the XIVth's reign. This king, and all the great men of his reign, took a pride in wearing them. They were the ornament of Turenne, Condé, Colbert, Corneille, Moliere, &c. It was then no uncommon thing for a favourite lover to have his whifkers turned up, combed, and pomatumed, by his miftrefs; and, for this purpose, a man of fashion took care to be always provided with every little neceffary article, efpecially whifker-wax. It was highly flattering to a lady to have it in her power to praise the beauty of her lover's whifkers; which, far from being difgufting, gave his perfon an air of vivacity: feveral even thought them an incitement to love. It feems the levity of the French made them undergo feveral changes both in form and name: there were Spanish, Turkish, guard-dagger, &c. whifkers; in fhort, royal ones, which were the last worn: their fmalinefs proclaimed their approaching fall.

The Turkifh wives kifs their hufbands' beards, and children their fathers', as often as they come to falute them. The men kifs one another's beards reciprocally on both fides, when they falute in the streets, or come off from any journey.

The fashion of the beard has varied in different ages and countries; some cultivating and cherishing one part of it, fome another. Thus the Hebrews wear a beard on their chin; but not on the upper lip or cheeks. Mofes forbids them to cut off entirely the angle or extremity of their beard; that is, to manage it after the Egyptian fa fhion, who left only a little tuft of beard at the extremity of their chin; whereas the Jews to this day fuffer a little fillet of hair to grow from the lower end of their ears to their chins,

where,

where, as well as on their lower-lips, their beards are in a pretty long bunch. The Jews, in time of mourning, neglected to trim their beards, that is, to cut off what grew fuperfluous on the upper lips and cheeks. In time of grief and great affliction they also plucked off the hair of their beards.

Anointing the beard with unguents is an ancient practice both among the Jews and Romans, and ftill continues in ufe among the Turks; where one of the principal ceremonies obferved in ferious vifits is to throw fweet-fcented water on the beard of the vifitant, and to perfume it afterwards with aloeswood, which flicks to this moisture, and gives it an agreeable fmell. In middle-age writers we meet with adlentare barbam, used for ftroking and combing it, to render it soft and flexible. The Turks, when they comb their beards, hold a handkerchief on their knees, and gather very carefully the hairs that fall; and, when they have got together a certain quantity, they fold them up in paper, and carry them to the place where they inter the dead, and bury them.

There are several instances given by Hippocrates, and other phyficians, of grown women, who have been obferved to want the customary discharge, having long beards. Eufebius Nierembergius mentions a woman who had a beard reaching to her navel; and in the cabinet of curiofities of Stutgard, in Germany, there is the portrait of a woman called Bartel Graetje, whose chin is covered with a very large beard. She was drawn in 1587, at which time fhe was but twenty-five years of age. "There is likewife in the fame cabinet, another portrait of her when the was more advanced in life, but likewife with a beard. It is faid, that the duke of Saxony had the portrait of a poor Swifs woman taken, 'remarkable for her long bufhy beard; and those who were at the carnival at Venice in 1726,

1

faw a female dancer aftonish the fpectators not more by her talents than by her chin covered with a black bushy beard.-Charles XII. had in his army a female grenadier: it was neither courage nor a beard that the wanted to be a man. She was taken at the battle of Pultowa, and carried to Petersburgh, where he was prefented to the Czar in 1724: her beard meafured a yarḍ and a half.-We read in the Trévoux Dictionary, that there was a woman feen at Paris, who had not only a bufhy beard on her face, but her body likewife covered all over with hair. Among a number of other examples of this nature, that of Margaret, the governefs of the Netherlands, is very remarkable. She had a very long stiff beard, which the prided herself on; and, being perfuaded that it contributed to give her an air of majesty, fhe took care not to lose a hair of it. This Margaret was a very great woman. It is faid, that the Lombard women, when they were at war, made themselves beards with the hair of their heads, which they ingeniously arranged on their cheeks, in order that the enemy, deceived by the likenefs, might take them for men. It is afferted, after Suidas, that in a fimilar cafe the Athenian women did as much.. These women were much more men than many of our Jemmy-Jeffamy countrymen.-About a century ago, the French ladies adopted the mode of dreffing their hair in fuch a manner that curls hung down their cheeks as far as their bofoms. These curls went by the name of whiskers. This cuftom undoubtedly was not invented, after the example of the Lombard women to fright the men. Neither is it with intention to carry on a very bloody war, that in our time they have affected to bring forward the hair of the temple on the cheeks. The discovery feems to have been a fortunate one, fince it gives them a tempting look.

HE gladiators were perfons who generally fought in the arena at Rome, for the entertainment of the people. They were ufually flaves,

I

GLADIATORS.

this cruel diversion from the Asiatics: fome fuppofe that there was policy in the practice, the frequent combats of gladiators tending to accuftom the people to defpife dangers and death.

The origin of fuch combats feems to be as follows: From the earliest times with which we have any acquaintance in profane hiftory, it had been the cuftom to facrifice captives, or prifoners of war, to the manes of the great men who had died in the engagement: thus Achilles, in the Iliad, lib. xxiii. facrifices twelve young Trojans to the manes of Patroclus; and in Virgil, lib. xi. ver. 81. Æneas fends captives to Evander, to be facrificed at the funeral of his fon Pallas. In courfe of time they came alfo to facrifice flaves at the funerals of all perfons of condition: this was even esteemed a neceffary part of the ceremony; but as it would have appeared barbarous to have maffacred them like beasts, they were appointed to fight with each other, that the life of one may be faved by killing his adverfary. This feemed fomewhat lefs inhuman, because there was a poffibility of avoiding death, by an exertion of fkill and courage. This occafioned the profeffion of gladiator to become an art: hence arose masters of the art, and men learned to fight and exercife it. These mafters, whom the Latins called lanifta, bought them flaves to be trained up to this cruel trade, whom they afterwards fold to fuch as had occafion to present the people with fo horrible a fhow. Thefe exhibitions were at first performed near the fepulchre of the deceased, or about the funeral pile; but were afterwards removed to the circus and amphitheatres, and became ordinary amusements.

The first how of gladiators, called munus gladiatorum, was exhibited at Rome, according to Valerius Maximus, by M. and D. Brutus, upon the death of their father, in the year of the city 490. On this occafion there were probably only three pair of gladiators. In 537, the three fons of M. Emilius Lepidus the augur, who had been three times conful, entertained the people with the cruel pleasure of seeing twenty-two gladiators fight in the forum. In 547, the first Africanus diverted his army at New Carthage with a fhew

of gladiators, which he exhibited in honour of his father and uncle, who had begun the reduction of Spain. In procefs of time, the Romans became fo fond of thefe bloody entertainments, that not only the heir of any great and rich citizen lately deceased, but all the principal magtrates, prefented the people with fhows of this nature, to procure their affection. The ædiles, pretors, confuls, and, above all, the candidates for offices, made their court, to the people, by entertaining them frequently with thefe fights: and the' priefts were fometimes the exhibitors of the barbarous fhows; for we meet with the ludi pontificales in Suetonius, Auguft. cap. 44. and with the ludi facerdotales in Pliny, Epift. lib. vii. As for the emperors, it was fo much their intereft to ingratiate themfelves with the populace, that they obliged them with combats of the gladiators almoft upon all occafions; and, as these increafed, the number of combatants increafed likewife. Accordingly Julius Cæfar, in his ædilefhip, diverted the' people with 320 couple. Titus exhibited a fhow of gladiators, wild beasts, and reprefentations of fea-fights, which lafted 100 days; and Trajan continued a folemnity of this nature for 123 days; during which time he brought out 1000 pair of gladiators. Before this time, under the republic, the number of gladiators was fo great, that, when the confpiracy of Catiline broke out, the fenate ordered them to be difperfed into the garrifons and fecured, left they fhould have joined the difaffected party.

Thefe fports were become fo common, and their confequences in a variety of refpects fo dangerous, that Cicero preferred a law that no perfon fhould exhibit a fhow of gladiators within two years before he appeared candidate for any office. Julius Cæfar ordered, that only a certain number of men of this profeffion fhould be in Rome at a time; Auguftus decreed, that only two fhows of gladiators fhould be prefented in a year, and never above fixty couple of combatants in a show; and Tiberius provided, by an order of fenate, that no perfon fhould have the privilege of gratifying the people with fuch a folemnity unless he was worth

400,000

lected from among the fpectators: fometimes they gave him his congé, or difmiffed him by putting one of the wooden files or rudis in his hand; and fometimes they even gave him his freedom, putting the pileus on his head. The fign or indication, whereby the fpectators showed that thev granted the favour, was premere pollicem, which M. Dacier takes to be a clenching of the fingers of both hands between one another, and fo holding the two thumbs upright close together; and, when they would have the combat finished and the vanquished flain, verterunt pollicem, they bent back the thumb; which we learn from Juvenal, Sat. iii. v. 36. It was the pride of the vanquished gladiator, when he was doomed to die, and had received the mortal ftroke, to fall honourably. Even when beat to the ground, and with just strength sufficient to fupport

me-

himself on his arm, he does not abandon himself to grief and dejection; but is folicitous to maintain that firmness of afpect which the gladiators valued themfelves on preferving in this feafon of diftrefs, and that attitude which they had learnt of the masters of defence. He must fear neither death, nor betray any token of forrow by his coun tenance, nor fhed one tear: quis diocris gladiator ingemuit, quis vultum mutavit unquam, quis non modo ftetit, verum etiam decubuit turpiter, says Cicero, in that part of his Tufculan where he is defcribing the aftonifhing firmness of thofe perfons. And at this inftant, notwithstanding his exhausted ftrength, and that he has but a moment to live, he is viewed with attentive admiration, and the glory of the scene is to fee him expire and fall without a groan, or without a fymptom or expreffion that could betray the smallest desire of life §

THAT which moftly engages the attention of travellers who pass through Alexandria, is the PILLAR of POMPEY, as it is commonly called, fituated at a quarter of a league from the fouthern gate of the city. It is compofed of red granite. The capital is Corinthian, with palm leaves, and not indented. It is nine feet high. The fhaft and the upper member of the bafe are of one piece of 90 feet long, and 9 in diameter. The bafe is a fquare of about 15 feet on each fide. This block of marble, 60 feet in circumference, refts on two layers of ftone bound together with lead; which, however, has not prevented the Arabs from forcing out feveral of them, to fearch for an imaginary treafure. The whole column is 114 feet high. It is perfectly well polished, and only a little fhivered on the eastern fide. Nothing can equal the majefty of this monument; feen from a diftance, it overtops the town, and ferves as a fignal for veffels at fea. Approaching it nearer, it produces an aftonifhment mixed with awe. One can never be tired with admiring the beauty of the capital, the length of the fhaft, nor the extraordinary fimplicity of the pedestal. This laft has been fomewhat damaged by the inftruments of travellers, who VOL. I. No. 1.

are curious to possess a relic of this antiquity; and one of the volutes of the column was immaturely brought down about twelve years ago, by a prank of fome English captains, which is thus related by Mr. Irwin.

These jolly. fons of Neptune had been pufhing about the can on board one of the hips in the harbour, until a Itrange freak entered into one of their brains. The eccentricity of the thought occafioned it immediately to be adopted; and its apparent impoffibility was but a fpur for the putting it into execution. The boat was ordered; and with proper implements for the attempt, thefe enterprifing heroes pushed afhore, to drink a bowl of punch on the top of Pompey's pillar! At the fpot they arrived; and many contrivances were proposed to accomplish the defired point. But their labour was yain; and they began to defpair of fuccefs, when the genius who struck out the frolic happily fuggefted the means of performing it. A man was difpatched to the city for a paper kite. The inhabitants were by this time ap-. prized of what was going forward, and flocked in crowds to be witneffes of the address and boldness of the Englifh. The governor of Alexandria was told that thefe feamen were about C

to