therefore of the Greeks, that they obtained domestic fowls from Persia, may be admitted; but as in cock-fights one Persian overcame another, how could these convey the idea of a victory of the Greeks over the Persians? Is the object, then, as stated by Lucian and Ælian not sufficient and intelligible?

That cock-fighting, in the course of time, became a favourite pastime among the people, is proved by the frequent mention which is made of it in various authors. Pliny says1 that it was exhibited annually at Pergamus, in the same manner as combats of gladiators. In this city, according to Petronius, a boy was promised a fighting-cock; and therefore it appears that boys kept cocks there for this pastime. Eschines reproaches Timarchus with spending the whole day in gaming and cock-fighting. Plato3 complains, that not only boys but grown-up persons, instead of labouring, bred birds for fighting, and employed their whole time in such idle amusements.

Cock-fights were represented also by the Greeks on coins and on cut stones. That the Dardani had them on their coins we are told by Pollux+; and this seems to prove that these people were as fond of that sport as their neighbours of Pergamus. Mr. Pegge caused engravings to be made of two gems in the collection of Sir William Hamilton, on one of which is seen a cock in the humble attitude of defeat, with its head hanging down, and another in the attitude of victory, with an ear of corn in its bill as the object of contest. On the other stone two cocks are fighting, while a mouse carries away the ear of corn for the possession of which they had quarrelled; a happy emblem of our law-suits, in which the greater part of the property in dispute falls to the lawyers and attorneys. Two cocks in the attitude of fighting are represented also on a lamp found in Herculaneum3. That the Greeks employed various means to increase the

1 Lib. x. c. 7.

4 Onomast. ix. 84.

2 Cap. 86.

* De Legibus, 1. vii.

Antich. di Ercolano, tom. viii. Lucerne, p. 63. More engravings of coins with similar impressions may be found in Haym. Thes. Brit. i. pp. 213, 234, in Agostini Gem. P. i. p. 199, and in Gorleus, P. i. 51, and 114, also P. ii. 246. Frölich Notit. Numism. p. 81. A single cock may often have been the emblem of vigilance.

irritability and courage of fighting-cocks is beyond all doubt. Besides the circumstance already mentioned in regard to the females, they gave them also food which produced nearly the same effect as opium does in India, and as brandy did some years ago on the European armies. Dioscorides1 and Pliny 2 ascribe this effect to a plant which they call adiantum. The former says it was given to game-cocks and quails, and the latter that it was given to game-cocks and partridges, to incite them to fight. Garlick, allium, was employed also, as we are told by Xenophon, not only for game-cocks but also for horses and soldiers. That the Greeks, however, like the English at present, armed their cocks with steel spurs, in order to render their battles more bloody, is denied by Pegge; though the contrary seems to be proved by a passage in Aristophanes, now become a proverb, and the remarks of the scholiast3. As the English procure the strongest and best fighting-cocks from other countries, and often from Germany, through Hamburg, the Greeks, in the like manner, obtained foreign game-cocks for the same purpose*.

Why the Romans showed more fondness for quail-fighting than for cock-fighting I do not know; but it is certain that they had not the latter, or at any rate only seldom and at a late period, which appears to be very singular, as they began then more and more to imitate the Greeks. Varro mentions the breeds which were chiefly sought for in Greece; but he adds, that though they might be good for fighting, they were not fit for breeding". Had the breeding of game-cocks been an employment, he would have spoken in a different manner. Columella also ridicules the breeding of these cocks, as a Grecian custom, and prefers the native race to all others. Eustathius, in the place already quoted, says expressly that the Romans preferred quails to game-cocks; yet in later times we find mention among them of cock-fighting, as has been before remarked.

1 Lib. iv. cap. 36.

2 Lib. xxii. cap. 21, sect. 30: "perdices et gallinaceos pugnaciores fieri putant, in cibum eorum additis." This affords a further proof that partridges also were made to fight.

Aves, 760: aiрe πλñтроv si páxe: tolle calcar si pugnas. See what has been said in regard to this proverb by Suidas, and by Erasmus in his Adagia.

The most celebrated breeds are mentioned by Columella, viii. 2.Plin. x. 21.-Geopon: xvi. 3, 30. 5 Varro, iii. 9.

There were cocks in England in the time of Julius Cæsar1; but it is said that they were kept there merely for pleasure, and not used as food. The latter part of this account is not improbable. The inhabitants of the Pelew Islands, we are told, eat only the eggs of their hens, and not the flesh. But the question, how old cock-fighting is in England, cannot be determined. Pegge says, the oldest information which he found on this subject was in the Description of the City of London by William Fitz-Stephens, who lived in the reign of Henry II., and died in 1191. This writer relates that every year on Shrove Tuesday the boys at school brought their game cocks to the master, and the whole forenoon was devoted to cockfighting, for the amusement of the pupils. The theatre or cock-pit, therefore, was in the school-house, and the pupils seem to have had the direction of it. To this information I can add, that cock-fighting in France was forbidden by a council in 1260, on account of some mischief to which it had given rises.

This pastime has been sometimes forbidden even in England, as was the case under Edward III. and Henry VIII.; also in the year 1569, and even later; but it was nevertheless retained to a late period. Even Henry VIII. himself instituted fights of this kind; and a writer worthy of credit relates, that James I. took great delight in them. In modern times this cruel amusement has been carried beyond all bounds; so that the cock-fights in China, Persia, Malacca7, and America, are nothing in comparison of those called the battle

De Bello Gallico, lib. v. 12.

2 "Præterea quotannis die, quæ dicitur carnivale (ut a puerorum ludis incipiamus, omnes enim pueri fuimus) scholarum singuli pueri suos apportant magistro suo gallos gallinaceos pugnatores, et totum illud antemeridianum datur ludo puerorum vacantium spectare in scholis suorum pugnas gallorum." I have transcribed these words from the first edition of this old topography, which is entitled A Survey of London, written in the year 1598, by John Stow...with an appendix containing Libellum de situ et nobilitate Londini, written by William Fitzstephen. Lond. 1599, 4to, p. 480. Stow translates the word Carnivale by Shrove Tuesday.

3 Du Cange, Glossarium. This council, as I conjecture, was held in the town of Copriniacum in diocesi Burdegalensi, which, as some think, was Cognac. 4 See Maitland's London, and Stow's Survey, 5 Bell's Travels, p. 303.

by Strype, i. p. 302. edit. 1754.

6 Tavernier.

8 Wafer, p. 118. VOL. II.

7 Dampier. Also the Gentleman's Mag. 1770, p. 564.

21

royal and the Welsh main. In the former a certain number of cocks are let loose to fight, and when they have destroyed each other, the survivor is accounted the victor, and obtains the prize. In the latter kind of battle, sixteen pair of cocks, for example, being pitted against each other, the sixteen conquerors are made to fight again; the eight of these which are victors, must fight a third time; and the four remaining a fourth time, till at length the two last conquerors terminate, by a fifth contest, this murderous game, after thirty-one cocks have successively butchered each other amidst the noisy exultation of the spectators, who however make a pretence to the character of magnanimity.

[Cock-fighting is one of the chief amusements throughout the East Indies and China, and it is a fashionable pastime for ladies in Peru. The spot on which the cock-pit Royal, which was built in the reign of Charles II., existed, is now used for the meetings of the members of Her Majesty's Privy Council. The custom of cock-throwing, that is, of throwing sticks at a cock exposed at a stake and which was practised in this country at Shrovetide, is supposed to have originated during the war with France in the reign of Edward III., and to have been considered a mark of hatred and contempt for the French people, of whom that bird was the national emblem; but the conjecture rests upon no solid authority and must be regarded as mere legend.

Cock-fighting is now forbidden and punishable by law in Great Britain, and every attempt is made to prevent this and other similar barbarous sports and to convict the offenders, by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.]

SALTPETRE.

GUNPOWDER. AQUAFORTIS.

In examining the question, whether Theophrastus, Pliny, and in general the ancient Greeks and Romans, were acquainted with our saltpetre, or at what period it became known, I shall perhaps meet with as little success as those who have preceded

me in the same research". I shall therefore be satisfied if competent judges allow that I have contributed anything new that can tend to illustrate the subject.

Our saltpetre, which is commonly called nitrum, and sometimes, though more rarely, sal nitræ, is a neutral salt composed of a peculiar acid, named the acid of saltpetre or nitric acid, and that alkali called potash. The characters by which it is most readily distinguished from other salts are its cooling taste, its fusibility when exposed to a small degree of heat, and in particular its so-called deflagration; that is, the property it has when placed in the fire, or on an ignited body, or when melted in a crucible with a combustible substance, of suddenly bursting into a very bright flame, by which it loses its acid, and nothing remains but a carbonate of potash. The principal use of it is in making gunpowder, and for the preparation of that acid known under the name of aquafortis2, which is employed in various ways.

Native saltpetre is so rare, that Cronstedt was not acquainted with it. At present, however, it is known to occur in

1 To this subject belong the following works :-Ars Magna Artilleriæ, Auct. Cas. Siomienowicz. Amst. 1650, fol. p. 61. The author thinks that the nitrum of the ancients is not at present known.

Natural History of Nitre, by W. Clarke. Lond. 1670, 8vo. It is here said that the nitrum of the ancients was impure saltpetre, and that the latter is produced from the former by purification.

G. C. Schelhameri de Nitro, cum veterum, tum nostro commentatio, Amst. 1709, 8vo, contains good philological observations, particularly in regard to the period, but leaves the question undetermined.

Saggi sul ristabilimento dell' antica arte de' Greci e Romani pittori, del Sig. Doct. Vin. Requeno. Parma, 1787, 2 tomi in 8vo, ii. pp. 95, 131: a learned but diffuse work. He thinks that the nitrum of the ancients was our saltpetre; and what others consider as proofs of its being mineralized alkali, he understands as indicating alkalized saltpetre. I am not, however, convinced. Before I ascribe to the ancients a knowledge of our saltpetre, I must be shown in their writings properties of their nitrum sufficient to satisfy me that it was the same substance.

Commentat. de nitro Plinii, in J. D. Michaelis.commentationes. Bremæ 1784, 4to. The author only illustrates the account of Pliny, and states what, according to his opinion, we are to understand in it in regard to alkali, and what in regard to our saltpetre.

2 [Since the discovery of the immense deposits of nitrate of soda in Peru, this salt, from its being much cheaper, has replaced the nitrate of potash in the manufacture of aquafortis, but it is not adapted to the making of gunpowder owing to its deliquescent property.]