Note 18 — PREFACE.
William Dansey translation
I purposely omit all notice of the “Venatio Amphitheatralis,” or “V. in arenâ” of ancient Rome; of which Tertullian, Augustin, Chrysostom, and the Christian Cicero, Lactantius, have written with merited reprobation. J. Lipsii Saturnal. Sermon. L. i. c. 7.“Cum viderent pietatis damno, addictum devinctumque populum his ludis; passim invecti in eos, ut libidinis, sævitiæque fontes; et bene illi.” Not a word can be advanced in palliation of these brutal outrages of humanity,
Prudentius.
illa Amphitheatralis spectacula tristia pompæ!
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, c. iv.
Cyprian. ad Donatum.
wherein man was “butcher’d to make a Roman holiday”—“Homo occiditur ad hominis voluptatem.” With this monstrous variety of Venatio, so called κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, and recorded as such with horror, we have nothing to do; with its abettors under any qualified form, the modern frequenters of the cock-pit or bear-garden, the heroes of a bull-bait, and patrons of mercenary pugilists, the rivals of the “municipalis arenæ perpetui comites” of Juvenal’s days, we have no sentiments in common. We have hailed with exultation the victory already effectuated, or in course of gradual achievement, over the ferocious barbarities of the amphitheatre, and the semi-pagan cruelties of more modern spectacles—a victory that is attempering the pastimes of the English people to the religion and morality of the age; and we sincerely deplore the existence of the θεάτρον κυνηγετικὸν of Dio, under any modification, in any part of the civilized world.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, c. i. s. 68.
The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest; What hallows it upon this Christian shore? Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast: Hark! heard you not the forest monarch’s roar? Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore Of man and steed, o’erthrown beneath his horn; The throng’d arena shakes with shouts for more; Yells the mad crowd o’er entrails freshly torn, Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev’n affects to mourn.
Let Christianity transfuse its lenient spirit into all our sports, and instead of the amphitheatrical entertainments, and barbarian amusements of infidels, let us have such as are congenial to the humanity of Christians. Let us be the champions of rational recreation, not of brutal gratification;—the friends of man, and not unnecessarily the enemies of inferior animals;—spectators in our temperate and innocent diversions of the dog’s innate faculties and prowess for the seizure of the destined animals of the chase—K. Henry VI. Pt. ii. act ii. sc. 1.“to see how God in all his creatures works,” and witnesses of “the curious search or conquest of one beast over another, persued by a naturall instinct of enmitie;—” how
Rokeby, c. iii. 1.
The slow hound wakes the fox’s lair, The greyhound presses on the hare;
but not hostile instigators of canine ferocity to the heartless maiming and slaying an unnatural prey—a species of animal conflict never intended by creative wisdom; and wherein violence is done to natural instinct to minister to man’s unhallowed sport.