they are always frightened, disgusted,
disappointed."

"Get out!" says Driver, "why a Malaga
merchant told me that English ladies often
get very fond of it, and become great amateurs
in all the scientific points of skill; but you
must come to our diggings after this, and
discuss the moral question."

"Just look at El Tato," says Spanker.

We look round; for, jaded with the repetition
of mere slaughter, we had talked with
our backs turned. El Tato, gay in his tight-
fitting dress of blue velvet, is labouring hard
by feats of agile daring, to retrieve the
character of his troop. A bull-fight costs some
three hundred pounds, and is not to be trifled
with. How he strikes the ground; how he
rages and chafes the fresh bull with that long
blue cloak that he holds up like a curtain before
his inquiring horns. Now he turns it right—
left. He flings it over the creature's head; he
puts it on, and lets it drag before the bull to
tempt him on. He laughs at him as he
pursues his Parthian flight, looking back, first
over his right shoulder then over his left. He
sits—actually sits for a moment— before him;
then leaps aside as the beast charges. He
flaps him with his cap, he strikes him, kneels
before him, and now—crown of all audacity—
he positively turns and bobs down upon his
head, then runs. No!—Yes!— No!—Yes!
The bull has gored him slightly in the right
thigh. The blue silk is torn and flaps. You
see the red stain under it. El Tato limps:
El Tato is faint, and the laughing of the two
thousand dies away into a murmur. No! he
is not hurt much; for he smiles and bows to
the people; but, tying round a handkerchief,
limps to the barriers.

But why more? when even Spanker droops
and yawns, and Driver talks of dinner, and
says it is "slow." One cannot expect El
Tato to be gored every five minutes. We
cannot expect every bull to sweep off a
dozen horses "to his own cheek," as Spanker
quaintly puts it.

Before the sport, now so wearisome, is over;
before the populace break loose like a sea,
and flood the arena, we hurry out like Lot
from Sodom. We meet in the street the
priests carrying back the host, which is
always brought to the bull-ring for fear a
matador might be wounded to the death.

"What about that beer?" says Spanker,
inquiringly, as we take our seats in the
Hotel divan, and discuss the moral bearing
and effect of the scene we have witnessed.
Spanker and Driver view it from the sporting
point of view, and like the risky riding.
Mouoculus is lost in admiration of its
antiquity. I rise, and pronounce the verdict,
tapping my broken fan authoritatively on
the table: "Gentlemen, the thing is a
bad, cruel thing, it inures the mind to
the sight of blood, and hardens the heart.
No wonder the Spaniard is too fond of using
his knife; no wonder he thinks not more of
taking life, when he can do it safely, than I
do of snapping this fan I hold in my hand.
It must brush the bloom from the youth,
modesty from the maiden. All we can say
for it is, that it may be tolerated in a nation
who, neither sensitive nor thoughtful, are
in many things two centuries behind
ourselves. We once had our bull-baitings;
we once used the knife as freely as the
Spaniard. The coarser-nerved Spaniard, in
seeing the bull-fight, sees an habitual thing,
and has not the sense of sharing in a crime,
as we have."

       FAREWELL TO THE COMET.

WE ought not to let our cometary lore get
rusty, because, although we must soon say
Good-bye to our actual visitor, another
famous comet is travelling, according to the
best authorities, in the direction of our solar
system. While we speed the parting, we
may soon have to welcome the coming guest.
Besides which, we may now always indulge
the hope that any new-discovered telescopic
comet may become, in the end, a brilliant
phenomenon like that we have just witnessed,
or may treat us to the spectacle of self-
division into two, in imitation of Biela's
comet.

When Donati, keeping watch at Florence,
discovered in the sky a scarcely-perceptible
telescopic glimmer, he could have no
suspicion of the great splendour and the great
renown which his modest nebulosity was
shortly to attain. It has now taken rank
amongst the most splendid of the wandering
stars which European and Chinese history
have registered on their annals. All those
who have seen both, agree that Donati's
comet certainly is more beautiful than the
famous comet of eighteen hundred and eleven,
which remained visible for five hundred and
ten days. This latter was comparatively of a
reddish hue. Both of them enjoyed the
advantage of shining in a portion of the sky
apart from the space occupied by the
twilight, which was so injurious to the effect
of the comet of eighteen hundred and fifty-
three.

Donati's comet is a completely new visitor
to our solar system; and, if it ever returns to
see how we are going on, it cannot be,
according to the calculations of a Prussian
astronomer, till after the lapse of two thousand
one hundred and one years and a-half;
that is to say, in the year three thousand
nine hundred and sixty of our era. Charles
the Fifth's comet, whose next appearance is
delayed by leave of absence expiring in
eighteen hundred and sixty, was, doubtless,
not so brilliant as this, and will probably not
equal the present comet. It may still be called
present, although it appears to have run away
from us. It remains visible till the end of
October in the feet of Sagittarius and in the
Southern Crown. After that period, it will