[141] "There is one class of affections for which the Atmosphere of Rome appeared to me unfavourable. These are head-aches arising from a tendency to a fullness about the head. In many cases among the English residents, I found persons not previously subject to head-aches affected with them here, and some already liable to them had been aggravated. Apoplexy, I was told, was at one time so frequent at Rome that a day of public fasting was ordered, and a particular form of prayer addressed to St. Anthony to avert so dreadful a calamity from the Holy city." APPENDIX.--PART II _An Account of the First Celebration of the_ KNILLIAN GAMES at ST. IVES. Alluded to at page 158 of this work. We trust that our readers will find some amusement and relaxation, after the fatigue of their day's excursion, in the following _Jeu d'Esprit_, as originally written by an eye witness of the festivity; an institution which, adds the said writer, will go far to preserve the tone of the Cornish character, and which can never be neglected while the Cornish men continue to be brave, and the Cornish women to be virtuous. The celebration of the Games at Olympia, after the revolution of every four years, formed the chief date of time among the Greeks; and perhaps in future the inhabitants of the West of England will reckon the years, as they pass, by the quinquennial return of the games at St. Ives. I ought rather to have begun by stating, that John Knill, Esq. a gentleman formerly of great eminence in the above mentioned town, has bequeathed the income of a considerable estate to be distributed by the trustees in a variety of prizes to those who may excel in racing, in rowing, and in wrestling. A large sum is to be divided among a band of virgins, who are to be dressed all in white, and with four matrons, and a company of musicians preceding them, are to walk in pairs to the summit of the hill, which is near the town of St. Ives, where they are to dance and chaunt a hymn round the far famed mausoleum. Ten guineas are appointed to be expended in a dinner at the grand hotel in the town, of which six of the principal inhabitants are to partake; and this festival is to be repeated every fifth year for ever. From the earliest periods of history, the Cornish have been famous for their enthusiastic fondness of the athletic exercises of hurling, racing, wrestling, and rowing, and for the pious fervour of the hymns which the Druids instructed them to sing round the Cromlechs of the departed brave.