regard to their taste, from the particular exhibition of a woman flayed alive, were they not in the constant practice of performing other pieces that, in point of immorality and obscenity, are still infinitely worse; so vulgarly indelicate and so filthy, that the European part of the audience is sometimes compelled by disgust to leave the theatre. These are such as will not bear description, nor do I know to what scenic representations they can with propriety be compared, unless to those gross indecencies of Theodora, which Procopius has described to have been exhibited on the Roman stage, in the reign of Justinian[11]. The people who encourage them must be sunk very deep in intellectual grossness, and have totally lost sight of all decency. These and similar scenes may be considered among the ill effects of excluding women from their due share of influence in society. [11] See _Gibbon_, under Emperor Justinian; and _Menagiana_, in which is given the translation of a very extraordinary passage from _Procopius_. It would be impossible to compliment the court of Pekin on the elegance and refinement of its entertainments, but at the expence of truth and reason. Those of Tartar origin will no more bear a comparison with the noble contests of strength and agility displayed by the old hardy Romans in the Circensian games, than the regular drama of the Chinese will admit of being measured by the softer, but more refined and rational amusements of a similar kind in Europe. It is true the scenic representations in the decline of the Roman empire, as they are described to us, appear to have been as rude and barbarous as those of the Chinese. They began by exhibiting in their vast amphitheatre the rare and wonderful productions of nature. Forests enlivened with innumerable birds; caverns pouring forth lions, and tygers, and panthers, and other beasts of prey; plains covered with the elephant, the rhinosceros, the zebra, the ostrich, and other curious animals, which the wilds of Africa furnished, were all brought together within the circuit of the _arena_. Not satisfied with the rich productions of the earth, the sea must also become tributary to their amusements. The arena was convertible into a sheet of water; and, at length, the two elements concluding a marriage, as on the Chinese theatre, produced a race of monsters which, according to the Latin poet's[12] description, might vie with those of China. "Non solum nobus sylvestria cernere monstra Contigit, æquoreos ego cum certantibus ursis Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum Sed difforme genus."---- Where Sylvan monsters not alone appear, But sea-cows struggle with the shaggy bear, And horses of the deep, a shapeless race.---- [12] T. Calpurnius.