ORIGIN OF HUNTING. S69 



We shall commence with the sacred history 

 itself, which describes the first warriors under the 

 denomination of hunters ; and not only did the 

 passion for the chase form a kind of society between 

 the dog, the horse, the falcon, and man, but Pliny 

 is quite correct in saying that hunting was not only 

 one of the first exercises of man, but that it gave 

 rise to monarchical states. For example, Nimrod, 

 the first Mng^ who reigned at Babylon, devoted him- 

 self to hunting, and delivered his subjects from the 

 savage beasts that desolated the country ; and in 

 the sequel, by making soldiers of his companions in 

 the chase, employed them in extending his empire, 

 and establishing his conquests. In fact, nothing in 

 those da,ys procured a man so much esteem as being 

 an expert sportsman or hunter; and had not Nimrod 

 been a sportsman, he would not have been a king. 

 People submit themselves to government by force, 

 as wild animals do, and not by choice ; and he 

 erected himself into a monarch by finding himself 

 stronger than his neighbours. He taught the 

 people to make up companies for the chase ; and, 

 after exercising them for this purpose in the first 

 instance, he led them on by degrees to a social de- 

 fence of one another, and thus laid the foundation 

 of his authority and his kingdom. It is no wonder, 

 then, that so many of the first kings or heroes, of 

 whom antiquity makes mention, should be charac- 

 terised as celebrated hunters, and destroyers of 

 noxious animals ; an employment prescribed in the 

 Book of Moses, and deified in the theology of the 

 Pagans. Bacchus is drawn by tigers, because he 



