Nugae Antiquae
It may seem strange, among so many grave and weighty matters, to present so idle and trifling a discourse as the title hereof seemeth to promise; and the writer may be thought to have been very gamesome in his humour, or very barren of other matter for so doing, if both our chronicles did not show us a precedent of a stout and politic King (I cannot say just and virtuous) that propounded as a serious matter, at a council-board, to have a fit and well chosen playfellow for his nephew; and if every man's own experience did not tell him that recreation after study, ease after pain, rest after labour, is very necessary.
Now though I know that holy and wise preachers may say, and say truely, that as a man may be merry without laughing, quell hunger and thirst without surfeiting, so he may refresh his spirits without dice or card-playing; yet I will not be so severe and stoical to pronounce that such play is unhonest, ungodly, unlawful, and by wise princes ought to be banished, not only out of their houses, but out of their dominions, as an infecter of manners, a spoiler of youth, a waster of wealth, yea, and of that which is not to be redeemed by wealth, our most precious time: for, if I should hold a paradox, I should have all our young lords, our fair ladies, our gallant gentlemen, and the flower of all England against me; yea, to say truly, I should have mine own fancy and custom, nay even my own opinion and judgment against me: because I do think it at the worst, tolerable; for the most part, indifferent; and in some sort, commendable: and therefore, at the first entrance hereto, I may shake hands and make truce with my good friend Mr. Groomporter, and assure him that this discourse of mine tends no way to his hindrance; but rather to establish an honour and order in that, which in wise men's opinions is now both dishonourably and disorderly abused, specially in that house whence the pattern and light of all honour and order should come.
I. First therefore, I will show you what the true use of play is.
II. Secondly, I will lay down briefly what vices it participateth.
III. Thirdly, I will declate my counsel for a remedy of such disease, for avoiding all or the most of the inconveniences that happen by the untemperate and immoderate use of the same.
PLAY, according to the ancient school-men, (who were the narrowest examiners and subtlest distinguishers of words,) is desined to be, LUDUS, id est, locutus vel operatio in quo nihil quæritur nisi delectatio animalis. [That is,] "A spending of the time either in speech or action, whose only end is a delight of the mind or spirit." And therefore they call it also a remedy against the overburdening and dulling of the spirits. It may be derived into three kinds.
First, of devotion, of which kind of recreation, although it be absolutely the best, I shall have cause to speak but litle.
The second, of unseemly pleasures, provoking to wantonness; of which, because it is the worst, I must needs say somewhat.
The third, of all kind of games devised for pastime, which they comprehend. under the name of alearis and quasi alearis;<58> in which either mere hazard prevails, as at dice; or chance with some use of wit, as in cards and tables;<59> or chance with some sleight, strength, and agility of the body, as shooting, bowling, tennis, the most of which being adiaphora, things indifferent, and both to good and bad uses in all the ages of a man, are consequently the principal ground and project of this my discourse.
Of the first and most excellent play or recreation (that I may not speak without authority) we find an example in the holy histories of David, 2 Kings, vi. cap. who said, Ludam, et fiam vilior.<60> Holy virtuous pastimes be advised in the New Testament, "Singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs," as St. James counselleth those that are merry; walking abroad and meditating, as Isaac did, like a dove; recording some of the eloquent and excellent soliloquies of St. Augustine; or, if they be unlearned, singing one of David's divine psalms well translated into metre; of which myself have heard some profess to have had more pleasure, and their minds more lifted up to devotion, then with all the solemn church music of organs and voices: whether it were the matter, or the metre, or the maker, or the music, or all together that so ravished them; of which excellent work, I mean those psalms in metre, seing it is alredy prophesied those precious leaves (those hymns that she doth consecrate to Heaven) shall outlast Wilton walls<61>, methinks it is pity they are unpublished, but lie still enclosed within those walls like prisoners, though many have made great suit for their liberty. But of this kind of play I need say no more, not doubting but many noble-minded courtiers frequent often such virtuous exercises, and, if they would more often by my persuasion, I would be not a little glad of it.
Of the second sort of play, provoking only and chiefly to wantonness, (though some more, some less,) such have generally been esteemed interludes, tumblers, jesting fools, and scoffers, masking and dancing, and such like, in some of which there may sure be such temper, as to make them void of sin; yet commonly there is such temptation as is not without some shame; therefore, how so ever the beholders, if they give not as it were the bridle too much to loose and wanton desires, may be excused, yet the actors for the most part are esteemed illiberal, base, and ridiculous. One said merely that "interludes were the devil's sermons, and jesters the devil's confessors; these for the most part disgracing of virtue, and those not a little gracing of vices." But, for my part, I commend not such sour censurers, but I think in stage-plays may be much good, in well-penned comedies, and specially tragedies; and I remember, in Cambridge, howsoever the preciser sort have banished them, the wiser sort did, and still do maintain them.
True it is that St. Augustine doth reprove, and that very justly, the plays of the ancient Romans, such as those that were called Bacchanalia; and not only these drunken and wanton plays, but even their Circenses and Seculares, because these were for the most part full of blasphemous superstition, and even dedicated (as he most amply proveth) to the honour of their false gods, indeed, foul spirits and mere devils; but what prejudice need that to be to our interludes, which are no way intended to the dishonour of our own true Lord, nor honour of his enemy. Concerning this matter one wrote a pretty elegy, of wich I remember these four first verses:
Non ego qui ludos spectant reor esse nocentes,
Non his omne tamen crimen abesse puto;
Grandior his ætas morum sine vulnere magno,
Forsan adesse potest, sed nisi forte potest.
To see a play I call no heinous crime,
Yet say not I, all fault is absent thence;
Men, staid in years, may see the same sometime
Perhaps, (and but perhaps) without offence.
But now whence comes this offence, but from the ill penning of the plays by the writers, or by the wanton humour of this time, whom no mirth can please if it be not sauced with some bawdery?<62> and the poet's care, as saith Terence, is, Populo ut placerent quas fecissent fabulas.<63>
Nero, one of the worst emperors, was too much delighted in music, and all kind of poetry. Will any man conclude thereby, that music and poetry is abominable, because that abominable tyrant loved them? Nerva, one of the best of the good emperors, was much pleased with a buffoon or jesting fool that he had, yet it followed not that all that can play the fool are worthy to be favored by emperors; for even that jester was prettily jested at one day by the emperor. For, when the fool, having made him merry, begged somewhat of him and could not obtain it, he asked the Emperor "why he would not give him greater rewards, seeing he took such pleasure in his counterfeiting?" "Oh," said he, "if I paid for it, the pleasure were lessened:" meaning, belike, that half the sport was to see him play the fool for nothing; and sure it seems they are not well sorted in their state and quality, if they be not, as Horace calls me,
Scurra vagus, non qui certum præsepe teneret;
Qælibet in quemvis opprobria fingere sævus.
Like wandering rogues that have no certain manger,
Pressed to rail and scoff at every stranger.
But that such kind of fellows as these be still hawking and hanging about princes' courts and noblemen's houses, is a custom so ancient, that it is lawful by prescription.
As for the rest of the sports of this second kind, being not the chief intent of my present treatise, I pass them over with this general caveat, either for practising or beholding of them, ne quid nimis.<65> For, as to be pleasant conceited,<66> to be active and musical, are courtly and liberal qualities; so, for noble personages to become jesters, tumblers, and pipers, is hateful, fond,<67> and dishonourable.
III. The third sort of plays, which I called aleares et quasi aleares,<58> comprehending in a manner all kind of games played at for wagers; being one of the most dangerous rocks, at which the youth of this island suffer voluntary shipwreck, both of fame and fortune, is the special kind of which I would now speak. For I have sometime, considering hereof, wondered at that strange disease of some men in this kind, who playing at cards or dice with, as ill fortune (commonly) be, and with such impatience, that in reason it must exclude all pleasure; that have not had the power to refrain from it, but have still pursued it either to the utter decay of their estates, or else driven with a kind of unnecessary necessity to descend to so base shifts, as when their wiser judgment hath after (by assistance of God's good grace), expelled that foolish fancy, they themselves have damned and detested, as most ignominious and reproachful. And therefore, seing so plainly this infection begin to grow so general, and myself having so hardly<68> (and perhaps, scantfully<69>) escaped it; though it were an honest and acceptable endeavour to find some remedy if I could, for the same.
First, therefore, I did search as physicians do, the true nature of the disease, and out of what humours it is specially fed; and I find (partly by unpartial examining mine own imperfections and follies, and partly by observing other men's customs) this excessive play to grow from one of these evil affections of the mind which the ancients (not unproperly) were wont to term "deadly sins," viz. pride, covetousness, and sloth: of which, sloth causeth the frequentation of it; pride, the greatness; and avarice, the greediness. And accordingly I direct my advice hereto as good physicians do medicines, not quite to take away the humours, but only to restrain the dangerous overflowing thereof. Not but that I am fully persuaded, that if I should make such an anatomy, as might easily be done; of the foulness of these offences that arise out of great play; yea; if one of these gamesters might, with the eye of virtuous judgment, see but one saucer full of the corrupt blood that this pestilent disease hath bred in them, they would suffer themselves not only to be purged, but to be lanced, rather than any drop of such blood, or of so dangerous a humour, should be remaining in them; and, as for those that were yet never infected, they would follow the Italians' medicine for the plague:—
Presto procul, tarde cede, recede redi.
Go away with the first, remove away farthest, return with the last.
But this season serves not for such kind of physic, I will neither purge, lance, nor let blood; my patients shall fare delicately, so they will feed moderately; finally, they shall never need either swear or sweat (though their disease make them often do both) if they will follow but the prescript that I will give them; and for their more assurance, I have taken it myself, and some of my good friends, and therefore I can say as my Ariosto saith:—
Believe what here is shown for thy behoof,
Probatum est, I know, 'tis true by proof.
But, that I may yet a while continue this my physical metaphor, mark what I shall tell (I speak to all great players) of the origin of your maladies; and, if you find that I discover aright your diseases without feeling your pulses, think I can as well prescribe a medicine without casting your waters.
i. First, therefore, I say, the chief nurse of play is Idleness or Sloth. Not but that play is a kind of remedy also against sloth, but yet, when we are grown by too much eating and surfieting, to a general indisposition to all business, then commonly we embrace play to avoid sleep. I will leave to the divines to tell you how dangerous a thing this fullness of flesh is counted, and what became of them that did "eat and drink, and rose up again to play." Let us but morally and civilly (as I may say) lay before us an example of some one, of which there is too great choice, that spends his whole life in play. As thus, for example; in the morning, perhaps, at chess, and after his belly is full, then at cards; and, when his spirits wax dull at that, then for some exercise of his arms at dice; and, being weary thereof, for a little motion of his body, to tennis; and having warmdd him at that, then, to cool himself a little, play at tables;<59> and, being disquieted in his patience for overseeing cinque and quater,<71> or missing two or three foul blots, then to an interlude; and so (as one well compared it) like to a mill-horse, treading always in the same steps, be ever as far from a worthy and a wise man as the circle is from the centre. Would not one swear this were a marvellous idle fellow?
Sure idleness is a thing not only condemned of all men, and by some law-makers severely punished, but even hateful to nature itself, and therefore commonly it is the first suggester of all the foul and enormous sins that are committed.
Quæritur Ægisthus quare sit factus adulter?
Impromptu ratio est, desidiosus erat.<72>
What made Ægisthus first a lecher grow?
Sloth was the cause, as all the world doth know.
It is the broom that sweepeth clean all good thoughts out of the house of the mind, making it fit to receive the vii devils, that the man's end may be worse than the beginning.<73> For, as contemplation raiseth the soul to the true love of God and inflameth it with a desire of virtuous actions, so doth idleness depress the spirits, engenders a desire of unworthy things, and cooleth or rather quencheth all the sparks of virtue and honour. Wherefore, not to stand too long upon this point, which would (you may see) afford infinite matter; whosoever will not be noted with the foul infamy of idleness, let him not be a continual gamester; for, if he play very much, Demosthenes were not able to clear him if he were sued upon an action of idleness. I say very much: not but that I count a little play, as I said in the beginning, both tolerable and also commendable for worthy persons of either sex (specially attending in court) to recreate themselves at play; and methinks I have observed good use thereof. For it is (be it spoken under correction) an unfitting sight to see a presence-chamber empty more than half the day, and men eannot be always discoursing, nor women always pricking in clouts;<74> and therefore, as I say, it is not amiss to play at some sociable game (at which more than ii may play) whereby the attendance may seem the less tedious to the players, and the rest that look on may in a sort entertain themselves with beholding it, as daily experience showeth us. Wherefore, I have been ever against the opinion of some elder servitors (that seem now to be better antiquaries than courtiers) who will maintain that till ii of the clock no gentleman should stand above the cupboard; that to lean in the presence-chamber is unseemly; to sit is unsufferable; that play came not in by licence, but crept in by licentiousness.
These good gentlemen think that one of us may boast of the well spending of that day wherein they have told us how merry a world it was when the King<75> went to Boulogne; whereas, thanks be to GOD and that noble King's most noble daughter, we think it as merry still; and to such reprovers I answer, new lords, new laws: her Majesty's commandment is sufficient law in her court, and if it please her Highness, she may have it so still, but sublata causa tollitur effectus; "effects remove with their causes." Good manners will teach every man when it is unseemly to lean or sit, and yet the noble nature of Princes is seen in these indulgences of ease (as I may so call them) to their servants and subjects. It hath been a favour (though now not common) to give a pardon of the cap, viz, to stand covered. It is a great honour of the Queen's court, that no prince's servants fare so well and so orderly, nor have more wholesome provision in all Europe: to be short, the stately palaces, goodly and many chambers, fair galleries, large gardens, sweet walks, that princes with magnificent cost do make, (the xxth part of which they use not themselves,) all show that they desire, and would have all men think they desire, the ease, content, and pleasure of their followers, as well as themselves. Which matter, though it be more proper to another discourse, yet I could not but touch it in this, against their error rather than austerity, that say play becomes not the presence, and that it would not as well become the state of the chamber to have easy quilted and lined forms and stools for the lords and ladies to sit on, (which fashion is now taken up in every merchant's hall,) as great plank forms that two yeomen can scant remove out of their places, and wainscot stools so hard, that, since great breeches were laid aside, men can scant endure to sit on. But, to end this first part of this tripartite discourse, you see how willing I am both to allow play, and all ease in your play, so the chief end of play, be that which should indeed be the true use of play;—to recreate the spirits for a short time, to enable them better to serious and weighty matters.
ii. The second cause of excess in play I noted to be pride; an ill cause of a worse effect, which because it loves to be glorious will seldom be seen alone, but attended on with wrath, riot, and blasphemy; and, (save that custom hath made it so familiar to us that we neither observe it in ourselves nor in others,) we should perceive that this proud humour that is fed by play, makes us oft swear more in one hour, than otherwise a man could have occasion to do in a whole year. Now, that you may plainly see it is pride chiefly that moves men to great play, (specially in court and in public assemblies wheresoever,) mark, I say, the greatest and the most professed great players, if they will not in private men's houses, or in their own, (if they have any,) play as small game as need be, whereas to play the same, nay, five times the same stake in other places, they would count themselves disparaged for ever.
It is ever noted that the foulest vice that is, seeks to put on a mask and show of some virtue; so this pride in gaming would fain be taken for a kind of magnanimity and bountiful disposition; and therefore, as I said, the more public the place is, the more honourable the presence, the deeper the play groweth; and then, as though two shilling and six pence had not as many syllables in it as one hundred pounds, you shall hear them still talking of hundreds and thousands. And wherefore is all this, forsooth?—because the beholders may extol their brave minds, and say one to another, "Did you ever see gentlemen that cared so little for their money, so brave, so bountiful, etc." and perhaps even herein they are deceived, and that insteaed hereof, some of the standers by tell how they heard, but 3 days past, a mercer importuning some one of them for 10l. matter, and could get no other answer but—"God damn me, if I pay you not the next money I receive:" and another had a poor widow following of him, suing to buy a copyhold in which she had a widow's estate, and offered in a year to pay fifty pound; and he protested "he had such present need of money he could not stay so long," and sold it to another for 30l. in hand: and a third, perhaps, was hard chaffing with the bailiff of his husbandry for giving viiid. a day this dear year<76> to day labourers, saying, "he might. have had them for viid." Lo the bounty of these magnifical<77> players! to omit how basely some of these big men will borrow, how beggarly they will shift, when they will seem most bountifully to spend. Such scornful grand miserable straits they are driven unto, that scorn to use a measurable proportion in their play, according to their state and callings.
Neither would I conclude hereof, that great princes or nobles should play for so little as were not worth the reckoning of, for know the saying; sine quæstu friget lusus; "small stake makes cold play." And therefore, though it be hard to prescribe a mean and rule of a thing so subject to extremities in so divers callings and abilities of the players, yet I would deliver this as my opinion, and advise herein in general:—that the wager in play should be as it were sauce, and not the substance of it; so as a man should take at least equal contentment for winning the game as the money; and be less greieved for losing the money than the game; that a man should venture no more to play than he could be easily persuaded to give out of his superfluity to some well deserving person that were in want; that if the quality of the persons be so different (as oft it happens), that 10 shillings loss to one were more than 10l. loss to another; then the greater persons should rather stoop somewhat below their custom, than the meaner man should step somewhat above his calling: For sure I am, if one of the extremes must be fallen into, the little play has the less danger of fame, of fortune, of fault, than the greater. Besides, if the greater persons in matter of game should not sort themselves to the meaner, how should princes in their dominions find playfellows? For, if her Majesty, would play at primero<78> in that proportion of her estate as have seen some of her mean subjects in their poor callings, she should play a dukedom at a rest, and a barony stake, and then know none able to hold play with her: but if her Highness can vouchsafe to play sometime with her servants according to their meaner abillities, I know not why we her servants, should scorn to play with our equals or inferiors for competent wagers, as the loss may not be burdensome to them. And yet, not to neglect the honourable show of the place, I would wish, that greater persons should, according to their callings, play on a velvet carpet, handle nothing but gold; talk of nothing but pounds, and yet to venture no more than they may with their honours truly pay, and with their ease willingly spare.
As for the standers by, (who need not know whether every rial<81> passes current for 10s. or for 10d.) their eyes are as well entertained and their thoughts as well pleased, as if so much gold were truly won and lost, of which myself have seen double experience. For example; where lords and great men have been disposed to play deep play, and not having money about them, have cut cards insteed of counters, with assurance (on their honours,) to pay for every piece of card so lost, a portague<79>; (a thing as some say common in Spain, and sometime done in this court,) I have observed that the beholders have taken small pleasure in beholding this play, though hundreds were really and indeed lost thereat. And even now this other day, when crastino animarum<80> was solemnly appointed for the payment of many matches won and lost at bowls, the country people, that saw no money walking, held themselves deluded, and thought they played but xiiid. up xiid. though I doubt some of their friends feel a greater rate for it ere long. And of the other side I have observed, when some of the better sort have by my persuasion (for putting in practice this counterfeit gaming) played good store of gold and silver, rating it for the present at the 10th or 12th penny, so as above a noble or a rial<81> was not in common account to be lost at a sitting; yet the vulgar beholders did hold it for the noblest and royalest play they had seen; only marvelling to see such sober gentlemen play so much in an hour as they were not used to spend in a week. Now, if the irreverent doctor Faustus, or some such grave patron of great play; should protest this to be an intolerable cozenage and dishonourable abuse of the beholders, and with some Chester-like eloquence, deride the weakness of the conceit:—I answer him, that I no way compare with his rare and well studied inventions of stops, of cuts, of points, of marks, of slips, of lays, of sets, of odds in betting, of slurs, of high-men and low-men, of familiars, and suchlike; which I am half ashamed to name, because it shows I am not so ignorant of them as I ought to be: all which cunning, if great play were suppressed in our common ordinaries, would be as merely left and forgotten (though it be now studied and practised as an excellent mystery and science) as Demetrius' occupation of making silver shrines for Diana was hindered by the apostle's preaching of Christ.<82> But I say in defence of this honest or at least harmless dissimulation, in making the play seem greater than it is, that there is almost no part of our life in which we do not generally affect and effect more dangerous practices of dissimulation in matters of earnest and weight than this that I bring in, in matter only of sport and game. We go brave<83> in apparel that we may be taken for better men than we be; we use much bombastings and quiltings to seem better formed, better shouldered, smaller waisted, and fuller thighed, than we are; we barb and shave oft, to seem younger than we are; we use perfumes both inward and outward, to seem sweeter than we be; cork shoes to seem taller than we be; we use courteous salutations to seem kinder than we be; lowly obeisances to seem humbler than we be; and sometime grave and godly communication, to seem wiser or devouter than we be. And infinite such things we may observe in ourselves, which are some of them commendable in this respect, that, by good and true endevour to seem to be, we may obtain at last the habit and grace to become to be such indeed, according to the excellent counsel, Labour to be as you would be thought. Wherefore, if we allow in so many things seeming without being, why should we not be content, in this one thing, to be less bountiful, or, (to term it rightly) less prodigal, less wasteful, less mad, than we seem to be.
But, because examples are more effectual often than persuasions, and to praise the dead is no flattery, I will allege<26> one example, well known to many of us, and therefore not unfit for this purpose. Who was more magnificent in matters of true honour, more sumptuous in building, rich in furnishing, royal in entertaining, orderly in maintaining his house than Sir Christopher Hatton, late Lord Chancellor? a man taught virtue, framed to wisdom, raised to honour, by her Majesty's special grace and choice; yet when some ambassadors lay at his house, (knowing the general humour of the meaner sort to love to see great play) while he himself entertained the chiefest of them with some grave discourse or some solemn music, he caused some of his friends to play at cards with 1000l. in fair gold of his money, rating it at their own pleasures at xii d. the pound, or as themselves agreed on, that the sums played might seem great, the show bountiful, and the substance not unsupportable. Thus you see that, if men will needs have a pride in a thing whereof they may rather be ashamed, yet in this manner of play I recommend to you, both the idle man may have his pastime, and the proud man his pomp.
Now remains only how we may allay the covetous humour of play, for satisfy it we never can; being the very dropsy of the mind, whose thirst increaseth with drinking; a wolf whose famine abates not with raving; a sea that augmenteth not his waters with filling. Is there any hope to assuage the fury of this disease in a gamester? Horace saith, there is in any man:
Fervet avaritia, miseroque cupidine pectus?
Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem
Passis, et magnam morbi deponere causam.
Boileth thy breast with lucre's base desire?
Precepts are found to quench this filthy fire,
And force this malady from thee retire.<84>
It hath been said, 'one strong poison will expel another;' which made me to persuade myself that the pride men have in play might have been a sufficient restraint of this base humour of cozenage, specially in a courtier; for I remember that he that writes the most exact rules for a worthy courtier to follow, concerning these kind of games, giveth these special rules; l. That a gentleman labour not to be too cunning at any of them, though the game savour of wit, as chess and the like. 2. That his play never breed any unseemly or untemperate passions, but above all that it be void of deceit and advantage. O! then, that gentlemen would be so proved to disdain these baseminded shifts and cozenages, and to scorn that gain that is got with a pack of cards and dice.
The ancient Romans, as appears by their own histories,were exceeding ambitious, but yet, (as St. Augustine excellent well noteth) that ambition bridled in them many greater and more enormous vices; for the pride of their conceit was such as made them despise pleasures, riches, ease, or whatsoever they thought might diminish their reputation with the people, or make them the less or the worse spoken of. But, how far otherwise it is with the pride of great play, I partly noted before. It beginns with wantonness and riot, continues in cursing and blasphemy, and ends commonly in quarrel and cozenage, which how unworthy it is of a noble and virtuous spirit, any, that have read Tully's Offices, may imagine. For there it is said, Fraus vulpeculæ, vis leonis, utrumque alienissimum ab homine, sed fraus odio digna majore; "Fraud is fox-like, force is lion-like, both for a man most unseemely, but fraud of the two more hateful." I will not here spend much time to answer some poor apologies that some weak wits have devised, beguiling themselves while they would fain prove it lawful to beguile others. But this I am most assured and can prove it by most evident reasons, that to use cozenage at play is a thing unnatural, unlawful, and, for the most part, to the party that useth it, unprofitable. For whether play were first devised as a sociable passing the time to recreate the spirits, or else (as some will have it) to beguile hunger in a time of great famine; for I will not discredit that same hungry history, having myself seen some, for eagerness to play, forbear eating, drinking, and sleeping, and other necessities of nature, a very long time. What can, I say, be more against the nature, institution, and use thereof, than to turn kindness to unkindness, mirth to melancholy, pleasure to pains; finally, the recreation of over-studied spirits to a most busy study of cozenage.
For, to omit their brabblings and blasphemies, (which would to God they could be omitted!) is it a small time, think you, that one of these cunning gamesters spends in practising to slur a die surely, to stop a card cleanly, to lay a pack cunningly? I have heard some (and those no novices in these mysteries) affirm, that the deviser of the set at the new cut, (that did cut so many ere the edge was fully discovered,) could not spend so little as a month's earnest study, beating his brains ere he could contrive it,—if it could be done. without help of the devil, for, indeed, whom the devil should the devil assist, but such as labour and study night and day in his service? Wherefore let them not call it their play, but their labour, their trade, their occupation, that play only for gain; for greediness breeds earnestness, and earnestness overthrows quite the very nature of all game:
Lusuri nuces animos quoque ponere debent,
Lusori cupido semper gravis exitus instat;
Pone malas quoties ludendo vinceris inas,
Nemo potest semper fælici ludere dextra.
Lay down your stake at play, lay down your passions;
A greedy gamester still hath some mishap;
To chafe for loss proceeds of foolish fashions,
No man throws still the dice in Fortune's lap.
These old verses (patched by me together out of I know not what old writers,) are sufficient testimony to prove, what temper the wiser have taught in times past, and what folly the foolish have committed at all times, concerning gaming; by which it appears most plainly, that not only to use deceit in play, but, (which is far less) to make gain the end of your play, quite perverteth the right use, quality, and nature thereof.
Now that it is unlawful is soon proved, by the common law, by the civil law, by God's law. By the common and civil law the phrase in both is to call cards and dice unlawful games, yea though played at without cozenage; and by the civil law money won of a ward or of a servant might have been recovered. . . years after as appears in the digest; though I am not ignorant that some civilians<86> oppose against such a recovery this maxim, In pari causa turpitudinis melior est conditio possidentis; "where both parties have like turpitude or dishonesty, the law favors the party in possession." But admit it be so for fair play, (though in my poor opinion that word turpitude hath relation not to the play used in dicing-houses, but in bawdy-houses,) yet for cozenage I hold it undoubtedly that money so won, if it may be proved, (for in law quod non probatur non est, "nothing is without proof,") may be recovered of the keeper of the dicing-house, by the civil law, and by action of cozenage or conspiracy, at the common law. Neither doth the former maxim make aught against it, because the dishonesty is not equal, but all in the deceiver. But now, for God's law, I must confess I find no commandment that says, "Thou shalt not play:"—neither in precise words, neither yet by implication; and therefore I said at the first, it is in itself a thing indifferent, other than as it is restrained either by canons of the church, (of which many are still in force in this realm) or by other positive laws, such as eating fish in Lent, wearing such or such apparel, which our divines hold to bind a Christian in conscience, being not directly against the word of God. But, (I say) be it that play by scripture is a thing indifferent, (for sure I am my ghostly father<87> never barred it me, neither by precept nor example,) what excuse is this for cozenage at play, that breaks at least half the commandments of the old and new law? The new law saith, "Love God above all, love thy neighbour as thyself." How well this gentleman loves his neighbour that lays baits and hooks to catch his money from him, every man may see. But I hope for all this he may love God better; I will believe it if he can answer this question of St. John, "How can one love God whom he hath not seen, that loves not his brother whom he hath seen?" But some will say, this is a law of a secret and rare perfection. The ten commandments are plain and open; doth the cunning gamester keep them? "Thou shall not covet;" is the last and least of them: let him be pardoned for breaking that. But if he be (as St. Paul calls it) an idolater with his covetousnes, if he swear and forswear, break sabbaths, dishonour parents and magistrates, murder with malice, steal from all he plays with, (for it is worse than theft,) witness falsehood with others, (all which all the world sees that the cozening gamesters daily do,) then it is too plain that they break nine of the commandments; and (if he be not an eunuch) I dare be sworn that he that breaks nine of them doth keep none of them.
Now let them devise what defences they can for this their cozenage, let them excuse it as a peccadillo, and say it is no robbery, because the party brings it to venture it, (for so tailors deny their stealing, by saying the stuff is brought them,) yet I think, if these seek their stolen stuff in hell, those will find theirs in hell also. For where law allows a recovery, and conscience binds to restitution, how can the gain be any way lawful?
Men are not passing good nor passing ill of a sudden, or all at once; but, as the good grow from faith to faith, so the lewd fall from filth to filth. At the first a man makes some scruple, and when he hath given himself leave to play false for a little, at last he taketh not only leave but pleasure; yea, sometime a pride to do it for more than a great deal. Wherefore, as Ovid saith,
Obsta principiis; sero medicina paratur,
Cum mala per longas invaluere floras.
Stop the first breaches; medicine will not boot
When, by delay, diseases take deep root.<89>
But yet to remember my purpose and promise in the beginning, which was that I would not quite purge any humour, but only allay it a little; so I will still yield to leave so much of this covetous humour in play as may serve for a sauce, (as I said) yea, and a hungry sauce, such as may move sufficient appetite, but withal I wish you to beware of a surfeit. Neither need I herein to give any other rules, but to refer you to those former advices that I gave, in weighing the divers callings and qualities of men.
There is a great show of popularity in playing small game, as we have heard of one that shall be nameless, (because he was not blameless) that with shooting seven up groats among yeomen, and going in plain apparel, had stolen so many hearts, (for I dare not say he came truly by them,) that he was accused of more than felony. But my noble godfather, William Earl of Pembroke, shall not be nameles, who (as I have heard a special servant near about him tell) lost two thousand pound in one night (imitating Augustus Caesars' play, though I will be sworn for him he never read his life) still giving away all he won, and paying all he lost; and it is possible (for so said his servant to me) that, by this his ill luck at play, be saved as much as the man before meant, though not mentioned, did lose.
Thus I have named, or at least signified, an example of small game without baseness, of great play without folly, now I will add only two, not unpleasant tales; one of a witty deceit, not dishonest; another of a willing loss, not undiscreet. Pope Julio (if I fail not in the name, and sure I am that there is a game of the cards after his name<90>) was a great and wary player, a great virtue in a man of his profession; but being a good companion, and as the phrase is, as merry as Pope Joan; it is said he played at primero with some great princes or cardinals that use to be popes' playfellows, and, after the play was grown warm and the rests great, it happened that two of them were encountered five and fiftye; much money being set up, and much more to set, the pope being the younger 55, though it were the greatest game of the cards, yet smelling the rat, for they be all nasuti<91>, and mistrusting, as it was indeed, that there was an elder game on the board, gave it over, swearing, if he had been but one more, he would have seen it; the other supposing, as the speech intended, that he had been at the most but four and fifty, allowed him the one more, and by judgment of the groom-porters there, lost it. Here was a kind of fraud, but not so full of fault as of wit, and the persons being such with whom 5000 crowns is but a reward to a courtesan for a night's lodging, it cannot in them seem covetousness or cozenage. Well you may call it a stratagem of wit at the cards, as they term stratagems of war in a camp; for though a heathen prince could say,
Ferro, non auro, vitam cernamus utrique,
Vos ne velit vel me regnare hora quidve ferat fors.
Try we, with glittering blade, not glistening gold,
Which of us two the highest seat shall hold.<92>
Yet now his Holiness and his chief Catholic sons can say,
Dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?
Be it virtue, be it fraud,
Against a foe it merits laud.<93>
Christians! if you will not learn fair wars, and fair play, and honesty from Heaven, learn it from the heathen; and, if humility cannot teach you to shun some glorious sins, let pride move you to shame of so base sins.
The other tale I would tell of a willing and wise loss I have heard diversely told. Some tell it of King Philip, and a favorite of his; some of our worthy King Henry VIII and Domingo;<94> and I may call it a tale, because perhaps it is but a tale, but thus they tell it:— The king, 55 eldest hand, set up all rests, and discarded flush; Domingo or Dundego, (call him how you will,) held it upon 49, or some such game; when all rests were up and they had discarded, the King threw his 55 on the board open, with great laughter, supposing the game (as it was) in a manner sure. Domingo was at his last card encountered flush, as the standers-by saw, and told the day after; but seeing the King so merry, would not for a rest at primero, put him out of that pleasant conceit, and put up his cards quietly, yielding it lost. What shall we say, for it is disputable? Was it well or ill done? We must say as is oft said, "it was as it was taken;" and they say it was well taken. But I say, if the favorite did it with a clear mind, as I may say candid, to increase and preserve his master's pleasure, it was a worthy and a kind part; but if the fox had read the fable of the beasts hunting with the lion, how the prey there is wont to be divided, then it was a wrong to the King, and a crafty fox-like part; and for my part, if my man should do so to me, I would think he mistrusted my patience: and I remember, four years since, a very near kinsman of mine, because I lost a game at chess somewhat too patiently unto him, whereby he mistrusted, as it was indeed, that I lost it voluntary, vowed he would never play with me at chess again; though he love the game, and, we meet often; neither can I hire him, with the best horse I have, to dispense with this foolish vow.
But to draw to an end, for I find in this idle discourse I am apt to fall into many idle digressions, I will now only show that the masters of this so seldom thrive by it, as if it were that alone it were enough to make them give it over; and then, for my conclusion, I will set down briefly the good uses may be made of this counterfeit great play.
We judge ordinarily those trades the best at which either some thrive exceedingly, or many thrive reasonably; and those the worst, at which many break bankrupts, and some wax wealthy. By this rule, a cozening gamester of all others should have a bad occupation; for, to omit his loss of Heaven, which perhaps he never thinks of; sure I am, following that course he can never hope of. For if a customer<95> could not be a disciple till he first left his receipt of custom, much less can a cozener be a true Christian till he leave his deceit in cozenage. But I say, (omitting that great loss that will make them eternal bankrupts,) let them show me but an example among a million that ever rose by play. I have heard of many rich merchants and goldsmiths in Cheap,<96> some came out of worshipful houses to come after them; who hath not heard of the hosier whom Dean Nowell, that good old father, was administrator unto; of a rich shoe-maker in Westminster; of hundreds I need not name, that by these honest painful<97> trades, (how fondly<98> soever some scorn them,) came to great wealth and substance? But what speak I of honest trades; courtesans have become rich, and after have been converts and remained honest. Pirates by sea, robbers by land, have become honest substantial men as we call them, and purchasers of more lawful purchase. But a cozener in a dicing-house that shall thrive by his occupation, and live well with that he hath got so ill, is as rare as a black swan, and no example to be showed of it in memory or history. Wherefore a dicing-house may not unfitly be likened to a barren unwholesome island standing in a tempestuous sea, (like to some of those of the West Indies) where no sustenance could be had, nor no man would live, save for the shipwreck happening thereabout, which helps them (though uncertainly, and not over-abundantly,) to so much as maintains life and soul. In such sort, with the ruin of infinite young gentlemen, the dicing-box maintains a hungry family.
Now for the cunning gamesters, who cannot often meet with a good market, but sometimes, when some good gull comes out of the country, and knows not how to grace himself in company but with play and good clothes; then do those gallants draw a good hand or two, but for the most part they spend more than they get, for though to a good use you shall seldom see them give, yet are they (for all that) exceeding prodigal in expense, specially on their back, and their belly, and beneath the belly, I mean in their fine silk stockings and Spanish leather shoes, French garters, and much French besides; the procuring whereof sometime, and sometime the curing, and after, the recuring, is exceeding chargeable; all which charges are not easily borne. Beside there is now so many of that association, as much hinders the gain of the fathers of that faculty: but if they get nothing, as most at home here be either so wise with their dear-bought wit, as they will play no more, or so poor with their now-felt folly, as they can play no more, so as now their chief hope is for our young captains to come rich from the Indies; but, if they get, I say, no good booties, yet they must stick to it, and live by it, as the old wall stands by the help of that ivy that was the first cause of rotting and undercreeping the foundation thereof. So that I may boldly conclude, that though there will ever be some fools to be cozened, yet as long as there is such store of knaves that would cozen them, they will grow every day poor by this beggarly occupation; and God send me quickly fatherless son, if I had not rather one of my sons were a tankard-bearer,<99> that wears sometimes his silk sleeves at the church on Sunday, than a cozener that wears his satin hose at an ordinary on Friday.
But now I come to the last part of this discourse, and will show some good uses of this kind of counterfeit play, which, by reasons, by exhortations, by similitudes, and by example, I do so earnestly labour to persuade.
1. First, therefore, I say, for those that have been used to great play, and therefore can take the less pleasure in small game; of the sudden, they shall with this fashion play, less offend their fancy, and less alter their custom, than suddenly to fall from pounds to shillings; as we see a child weaned from his teat by litle and litle, sometime with a sucking bottle, sometime with making bitter the nurse's nipples, then with other spoon-meat, till at last he makes no reckoning of childish milk, but falls to feed on more manly meat. Why should not a man be as well content to wean himself from unprofitable and unmanly customs? I have heard of one hath been so sick of melancholy, that he hath thought his head, or I think it was his nose, did fill all the chamber,<100> (for many men's heads fill greater rooms than they are aware of). Now this man could not be cured by any reason to prove it was not like to be so, nor by demonstration to prove it was impossible to be so, nor by sense to feel it was not so; but a far different means was used to cure him, by persuading him it was so, and feeding awhile that strange humour of his so long till the same humour and the same weakness that first moved that imaginary malady, made him capable of that imaginary cure: for the physician, coming into the patient's chamber, at his very entry found fault that he could not come to the bed's side for the greatness of the nose that filled all the chamber; "yea, marry," said his patient, "it is too true; how should it be remedied?" Why," said he, "it must be cut till it be less, and then be seared; and, presently calling for a hatchet, he laid about him upon the stools and forms, and, having conveyed great gobbets of flesh into the chamber, bare him in hand they were cut from that superfluous nose; at last, when he came with his hot iron to sear it, lest it should bleed too much, the melancholy man no sooner felt a little singeing of the hot iron, but he found his nose restored to very good proportion; so ended his melancholy. But alas! they are sick of a worse melancholy, that think either great play pleasant, or false play lawful; and, though they be not easily cured, yet my medicine is as fit and like to cure them as that I last recited.
2. A second good use of this counterfeit play is, that if men were bound indeed strictly to use it, (as for example, by her Majesty's commandment in her house, or such-like,) it would quickly take away, by one reason, both the greatness and greediness in play, which I noted as two of the chiefest ills that play is subject unto; and by such a means did Lycurgus banish usury and all kind of covetousness out of his country. For he finding the cause why men hoarded up gold and silver was only because a little purse full of that would buy so many kind of necessaries both for use and pleasure; I say, he presently made such an embasement of money in so extreme a degree, as all the current money was only of iron, and that tempered in vinegar, to make it good for no other use; whereby it soon came to pass that no foreign nation brought them any newfangled toys, to carry away their money, nor no man coveted to have great store of it, when it could not be kept secret, and if one would buy much, he must have brought four or five sumpters<101> laden with that coin to buy what four or five sovereigns<102> here would pay for. Now, if I do not much mistake it, this practice of play I persuade, hath much affinity with that law of Lycurgus; for if, during the time of play only, angels were embased to shillings, or shillings to pence, it would be such a cumber to play deep play, that none would endure it. If a man would have xl. in his rest, he must have 100l. sterling; if he won five pound at a cast at dice, he must tell over fifty, which were a pain rather than a pleasure.
3. Thirdly, a kind of commodity, though I count it but a small one, were this, that by using this play a man should play far more frankly and less impatiently, when he should play for so much money indeed: as the Italian that emboldened himself so, by using to stab a duke's picture, that in the end he stabbed the duke himself. And methinks it so far unfitting for a gentleman to chafe at his ill luck, as many will do, (whereas it is indeed the loss of the money, and not the game that makes them so choleric,) that sometimes I blush in their behalf, that (specially in the presence) will beat their fists on the board, fling the cards under table, which in smaller game you shall never see them offer, and therefore to such specially I commend this play, as most fit for them; wherein perhaps many will find their humour so well fitted, that they will be content never to prove the greater play, but please themselves with this, which is gentlemanly for show, little for loss, and pleasant for company and recreation.
