to inaccessible heights, and with about seventy
people dotted about here and there; was a
spectacle which was not exhilarating. And from the
shudderings indulged in by the audience, it
appeared that people enough were walking over
their graves to have filled the place even to the
topmost range of seats.

These cemeterial pedestrians, however, were
not to be got, and so the performances were
played to rather a small audience. There was
the usual circus business to be gone through
before the Bull appeared, and very well it was done.
The dislocation of limb enjoyed by the acrobat
boy on stilts, left nothing to be desired—except a
bandage for one's eyes that one might not see
him: while the witticisms of the clown were only
rendered incomplete by a want of cotton enough
in one's ears to render them inaudible. There
was the usual severe man who is not to be trifled
with in the middle of the arena, there were the
usual graceful ladies who do beautiful things
with scarfs and jump through rings, there were
the usual muscular gentlemen capable of riding
on every part of a horse except his back, and
equally at home upon the extreme tip of his ear
and the last hair of his tail.

All these things preceded, and led up to,
the great event of the day, the achievements of
the Performing Bull.

It may, perhaps, be remembered that the last
exhibition of this kind attended and reported on
by the Eye-witness was that of the Talking and
Performing Fish, and that, though it was in no
very flattering terms that he commented upon
that most unsatisfactory entertainment, he was
yet moved with a warm admiration and regard
for the poor seal, which had such a good face and
was such a bad actor. It would seem as if that
studying of the ingenious arts, which we learn,
on good authority, is attended with such
beneficial results to the human race, was not
without its softening influence also on the brute
creation. This little bull, trotting into the arena,
and up to its master, as a dog might—this
creature, for a bull, so singularly docile and
intelligent—became instantly a pet with the
audience. It may be that the sight of strength
in combination with docility is always pleasant;
it may be that this animal's beauty is
prepossessing, for, though small of stature, the bull
is of very beautiful proportions, and exquisitely
made; certain it is that he has made his way to
the national heart of John, his namesake, and
is likely to be a popular character.

It is not so much the things done that are
astonishing, as that a Bull should do them.
The performance simply consists of a certain
number of leaps over the usual bars, which
look like peppermint sticks, and through the
usual chastely decorated hoops. The Bull
is also made to stand on three legs, to go
round the arena on his knees, to lie down as
if dead, or to kneel in the action of a camel
waiting for its rider. He is also placed in a
peculiarly humiliating and ridiculous position,
with one of his fore-feet on a sort of pedestal
and the other on a kind of dwarf obelisk,
which is probably the "act" alluded to by
our young friend outside, when he stated that
the Bull would stand up on his two "behind"
legs.

One of the great features in all the undertakings
of this very admirable performer, is his excessive
painstaking. Take especial notice of his
carefulness, and observe now he picks his steps
through the hoops and over the peppermint
sticks. He is a hard breather, too, and in his
extreme anxiety to do right, puffs out his breath
like the jets of steam from an engine. Observe,
again, how incommodious an effort all this
running is to him, and how he subsides into a
walk the instant he is through a hoop or
over a bar: not cantering round the intermediate
space as other artists do. Let not his
self-command, too, pass unnoticed, as it is
exhibited at the conclusion of his career when he
allows himself to be lifted off the ground on a
sort of platform, and to be carried out of the
circus on ten men's shoulders, without so much
as staggering on his pedestal, or moving in any
way, except to turn his head from side to side
in mute and satisfied inspection of the audience.
He bears this carrying process, by-the-by, which
is very similar to that submitted to on great
occasions by his Holiness the Pope, a great deal
better than that prosperous potentate: who
always conveys the impression, when seen under
these circumstances, of being a sufferer from
intense sickness.

With this submission to being chaired, our
friend (the Bull, not the Pope) may be said to
conclude the list of his achievements. Though
a passive "act," it is by no means an easy one,
and is quite as creditable to his powers of
endurance as that which immediately precedes it,
and in which it is his duty to submit to certain
attempts to get upon his back, made by a
gentleman who is persuaded to "step up" from
among the audience, and who would look
like one of the public if he did not look still
more like a pantaloon out of work.

Not the least of the interest of this curious
exhibition was in the by-play. There was in
the very clumsiness with which the different
feats were performed, something which was
quite touching, so strongly did it convey the
impression that the Bull was a zealous Bull, doing
his best. It was surely a good sight, too, to see
him stop in his career at a word from his master,
and trot up to him in the middle of the arena at
a sign; and throughout to detect an obstinate
temper conquered, and an aversion overcome,
indicated from time to time by that (in
all quadrupeds) ungovernable organ, the tail,
which lashed itself about in almost ceaseless
movement against the Bull's black sides.

Altogether, then, the Performing Bull is a
highly satisfactory character. And as he does
not (as the Fish did) profess to be a Talking
Bull, he may be said to keep faith in all
respects with the public, except, perhaps, in the
one matter of size: the woodcut outside the
walls representing him as standing at least six
feet from the ground, and altogether losing