many persons on either side.

Bull-fights were also among their sports; which were sometimes
exhibited in the _dromos_, or avenue, leading to the temples, as at
Memphis before the temple of Vulcan; and prizes were awarded to the
owner of the victorious combatant. Great care was taken in training
them for this purpose; Strabo says as much as is usually bestowed on
horses; and herdsmen were not loth to allow, or encourage, an
occasional fight for the love of the exciting and popular amusement.

They did not, however, condemn culprits, or captives taken in war, to
fight with wild beasts, for the amusement of an unfeeling assembly;
nor did they compel gladiators to kill each other, and gratify a
depraved taste by exhibitions revolting to humanity. Their great
delight was in amusements of a lively character, as music, dancing,
buffoonery, and feats of agility; and those who excelled in gymnastic
exercises were rewarded with prizes of various kinds; which in the
country towns consisted, among other things, of cattle, dresses, and
skins, as in the games celebrated in Chemmis.

The lively amusements of the Egyptians show that they had not the
gloomy character so often attributed to them; and it is satisfactory
to have these evidences by which to judge of it, in default of their
physiognomy, so unbecomingly altered by death, bitumen, and bandages.

The intellectual capabilities, however, of individuals may yet be
subject to the decision of the phrenologist; and if they have escaped
the ordeal of the _supposed_ spontaneous rotation of a pendulum under
a glass bell, their handwriting is still open to the criticisms of the
wise, who discover by it the most minute secrets of character; and
some of the old scribes may even now be amenable to this kind of
scrutiny. But they are fortunately out of reach of the surprise, that
some in modern days exhibit, at the exact likeness of themselves,
believed to be presented to them from their own handwriting by a few
clever generalities; forgetting that the sick man, in each malady he
reads of in a book of medicine, discovers his own symptoms, and
fancies they correspond with his own particular case. For though a
certain neatness, or precision, carelessness, or other habit, may be
discovered by handwriting, to describe from it all the minutiae of
character is only feeding the love of the marvelous, so much on the
increase in these days, when a reaction of credulity bids fair to make
nothing