The exhibition of cups and balls is of great antiquity, and depends entirely on manual dexterity. It is mentioned in the works of various ancient authors, one of whom relates the astonishment of a countryman, who, on first witnessing the performance, exclaimed, “that it was well he had no such animal on his farm, for under such hands no doubt all his property would soon disappear.” Feats of strength have been common to all countries in every age. More than fifteen hundred years ago, there were persons who excited astonishment by the since ordinary exhibition of supporting vast weights upon the breast, and of even suffering iron to be forged on an anvil placed upon it. But these were mere tricks: to support the former, it is only necessary to place the body in such a position, with the shoulders and feet resting against some support, as that it shall form an arch; and as for the latter, if the anvil be large and the hammer small, the stroke will scarcely be felt; for the action and reaction being equal and reciprocal, an anvil of two hundred pounds weight will resist the stroke of a hammer of two pounds, wielded with the force of one hundred pounds, or of four pounds with the impetus of fifty, without injury to the body. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was a German, who travelled over Europe under the appropriate name of Sampson, and who rendered himself celebrated by the uncommon strength which he displayed: among many other extraordinary feats, it is said, that he could so fix himself between two posts, as that two or even more horses, could not draw him from his position. The same exploit was attempted not many years back, in this country, by a person who placed himself with his feet resting in a horizontal posture against a strong bar; only one horse was employed, and the man was enabled to resist the entire force of the animal, until both his thigh bones suddenly snapped asunder. Another had the temerity to try the same experiment, and, in like manner, broke both his legs. These instances clearly show, that apparent strength is often nothing more than a judicious application of the mechanical powers to the human frame; and from the catastrophe attending the two latter may be deduced the anatomical fact, that the sinews of the arms possess a greater power of resistance than the largest bones of the body. Feats of tumbling, rope dancing, and horsemanship, were practised at very early periods. Xenophon mentions a female dancer at Athens, who wrote and read while standing on a wheel which revolved with the greatest velocity; but the manner in which this was performed is not explained. Juvenal seems also to have alluded to a similar performance at Rome, in that passage where he says: “_An magis oblectant animum jactata petauro, Corpora quique solent rectum descendere funem, Quam tu._” _Sat._ xiv. v. 265.