Popular Sports and Exercises. -1)57 



Indeed the kind and nature of the popular 

 sports and exhibitions of a people, whether 

 just emerging from barbarism, |0r passing 

 through the various stages of improvement, or 

 arrived at the highest pitch of refinement, serve 

 to measure, as by a scale, the different degrees 

 of their advancement to the acme of civiliza- 

 tion. The two most powerful and celebrated 

 nations of antiquity, Greece and Rome, afford 

 ample proofs of the truth of this remark. The 

 shews and public sports of each of these 

 nations, while they issued from their character 

 and manners, operated on this very character 

 and manners, and rendered them more ardent 

 and permanent. This connection between the 

 character of a people and their sports, was for- 

 cibly impressed on their legislators and rulers. 

 Their public games were instituted for other 

 purposes than mere amusement and relaxation. 

 They were rendered subservient in Greece to 

 the noblest views of legislative policy. In- 

 timately connected with the whole system of 

 government, w^hether civil, military, or reli- 

 gious, they had a moral as well as a political 

 tendency. To promote ardor, emulation, 

 friendship, patriotism and all the animated 

 principles and connections of active life, the 

 Olympic, and other solemn festivals, w^ere in- 



