The Olympian, Pythian, Nemæan, and Isthmian games attracted visitors to these temples. These games did not consist of mere exhibitions of athletic prowess; but poets like Pindar--tragedians like Æschylus and Sophokles--historians like Herodotus--read to enraptured audiences the masterly products of their intellectual powers. Wrestlers and runners, sculptors and poets, and tragic and comic writers vied with one another to be crowned with a laurel wreath, or to receive a palm-twig, some a crown, or a tripod. No sordid feeling of gain mingled with their yet unalloyed pleasure in being distinguished for mere distinction’s sake; the commercial question was unregarded. The prizes, given away in the sight of the delighted masses, were for everything--for bodily as well as for intellectual excellence--even for proficiency in the art of kissing. At the festival of the Philesian Apollo a prize for the most exquisite kiss was conferred upon a young lady. At Sparta and at Lesbos, in the temple of Here, and also among the citizens of Parrhasia, women contended for the prizes with men. How much we try to imitate Greek customs may be judged from the fact, that we also give prizes for exquisite dogs, cats out of proportion, and fat babies; but we are sorry to say, that this is done with a keen eye to business--to advertise a baby-food or a dog-or cat-fancier. That art is not altogether Greek with us need astonish no one. We are trained for practical purposes, but the Greeks were trained to appreciate beauty, symmetry, and harmony, not in verses only, but also in the human frame and in every product of art. Architecture with them was thoroughly plastic; it was never subservient to some metaphysical subtlety; it was finished in itself; a total of which every part formed, as in the human body, a completing element--without which the whole conception of a temple would be as incomplete as a man without arms, legs, or toes. The Greek temple entirely differed from the gloomy buildings of Egypt or India, which were constructed as symbols of hell, earth, and heaven; hell was for the sinners, the outcasts and the poor; earth for the respectable middle-classes; and heaven for the priests, the kings and their high officials. The constructions never made any attempt at symmetrical beauty, but aimed only at gorgeous pomp, in order to overawe the credulous mob--mystery was their essence. Sudden turnings placed the terrified worshipper, unawares, face to face with some colossal idol, looking to the excited and surprised imagination twice as large as it was, and ascending and descending staircases visibly divided the temple into abodes of splendour and horror. With the ancient Greeks in constructing a temple, the first question was the aim of the building; to whom was it to be dedicated--to Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, Minerva or Venus? This question once decided, the most convenient spot, in accordance with the character of the god to whose