machines were erected frequented by persons of both sexes, and by some whose situation in life, one might have thought, would have prevented their appearance in such a mixed, and generally speaking, vulgar company; but the charms of novelty may be pleaded in excuse for many inadvertencies.

The Grecian boys had a game called in Greek Ελκυστινδα, which I have seen played by the youth of our own country; it was performed by the means of a rope passed through a hole made in a beam, and either end held by a boy, who pulls the rope, in his turn, with all his strength; and by this means both of them are alternately elevated from the ground.

XXI.-TITTER-TOTTER.

To the foregoing we may add another pastime well known with us by the younger part of the community, and called Titter-totter. It consists in simply laying one piece of timber across another, so as to be equipoised; and either end being occupied by a boy or a girl, they raise or depress themselves in turn. This sport was sometimes played by the rustic lads and lasses, as we find from Gay:

Across the fallen oak the plank I laid,

And myself pois'd against the tott'ring maid;
High leap'd the plank, adown Buxoma fell, &c.

XXII.-SHUTTLE-COCK.

This a boyish sport of long standing. It is represented by the following engraving from a drawing on a MS. in the possession of Francis Douce, esq.

It appears to have been a fashionable pastime among grown persons in the reign of James I. In the Two Maids of Moreclacke, a comedy printed in 1609, it is said, "To play at shuttlecock methinkes is the game now." And among the anecdotes related of prince Henry, son to James 1., is the following: "His highness playing at shittle-cocke, with one farr taller than himself, and hittyng him by chance with the shittle-cock upon the forehead, 'This is,' quoth he, the encounter of David with Goliath.'"'

Harl MS. 6391.

CHAPTER II.

I. Sedentary Games.-II. Dice-playing;-Its Prevalency and bad Effects.-III Ancient Dice-box ;—Anecdote relating to false Dice.—IV. Chess ;—Its Antiquity. -V. The Morals of Chess.-VI. Early Chess-play in France and England.— VII. The Chess-board.-VIII. The Pieces, and their Form.-IX. The various Games of Chess.-X. Ancient Games similar to Chess.-XI. The Philosopher's Gaine.-XII. Draughts, French and Polish.-XIII. Merelles, or Nine Mens'. Morris.-XIV. Fox and Geese.-XV. The Solitary Game.-XVI. Backgammon, anciently called Tables;-The different Manners of playing at Tables.-XVII Backgammon, its former and present estimation.-XVIII. Domino.-XIX. Cards, when invented.-XX. Card-playing much practised.-XXI. Forbidden.-XXII. Censured by Poets.-XXIII. A specimen of ancient Cards.-XXIV. Games formerly played with Cards.-XXV. The Game of Goose-and of the Snake.XXVI. Cross and Pile

1.-SEDENTARY GAMES.

THIS chapter is appropriated to sedentary games, and in treating upon most of them I am under the necessity of confining myself to very narrow limits. To attempt a minute investigation of their properties, to explain the different manners in which they have been played, or to produce all the regulations by which they have been governed, is absolutely incompatible with my present design. Instead, therefore, of following the various writers upon these subjects, whose opinions are rarely in unison, through the multiplicity of their arguments, I shall content myself by selecting such of them as appear to be most cogent, and be exceedingly brief in my own observations.

II. DICE PLAY-ITS PREVALENCY AND BAD EFFECTS.

There is not, I believe, any species of amusement more ancient than dice-playing; none has been more universally prevalent, and, generally speaking, none is more pernicious in its consequences. It is the earliest, or at least one of the most early pastimes in use among the Grecians. Dice are said to have been invented, together with chess, by Palamedes, the son of Nauplius, king of Euboea. Others, agreeing to the time of the invention of dice, attribute it to a Greek soldier named Alea,

Palamed. de Alea. lib. i. cap. 18.

and therefore say that the game was so denominated.' But Herodotus 2 attributes both dice and chess to the Lydians, a people of Asia; in which part of the world, it is most probable, they originated at some very remote but uncertain period. We have already seen that the ancient Germans, even in their state of barbarism, indulged the propensity for gambling with the dice to a degree of madness, not only staking all they were worth, but even their liberty, upon the chance of a throw, and submitted to slavery if fortune declared against them. The Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans their descendants, were all of them greatly addicted to the same infatuating pastime. One would not, at first sight, imagine that the dice could afford any great variety of amusement, especially if they be abstractedly considered; and yet John of Salisbury, in the twelfth century, speaks of ten different games of dice then in use; but as he has only given us the names, their properties cannot be investigated. He calls it," The damnable art of dice-playing." Another author, contemporary with him, says, "The clergymen and bishops are fond of dice-playing."

995

III. ANCIENT DICE-BOX-ANECDOTE RELATING TO FALSE DICE.

The common method of throwing the dice is with a hollow cylinder of wood, called the dice-box, into which they are put, and thence, being first shaken together, thrown out upon the table; but in one of the prints which occur in the Vocabulary of Commenius, we meet with a contrivance for playing with the dice that does not require them to be numbered upon their faces. This curious machine is copied below.

The dice are thrown into the receptacle at the top, whence they fall upon the circular part of the table below, which is

1 Isidorus Originum, lib. xviii. cap. 60. See the Introduction.

2 Lib. i.

De Nug. Curialium, lib. i. cap. 5. Orderic. Vital. p. 550. • Orbis Sensualium Pictus, translated by Hoole, 558. "In Latin, Pyrgus, Turricula, et Frittillus.

divided into six compartments, numbered as the dice usually are; and according to the value of the figures affixed to the compartments into which they fall the throw is estimated. Perhaps the inner part of the circle, with the apparatus above it, was so constructed as to move round with great rapidity when the dice were put into the tunnel. It would then be analogous to the E O tables of the present day, wherein a ball is used, and the game is determined by the letters E or O being marked upon the compartment into which it falls. The E O tables may have derived their origin from the above contrivance.

1

Dice-playing has been reprobated by the grave and judicious authors of this country for many centuries back; the legislature set its face against it at a very early period; 1 and in the succeeding statutes promulgated for the suppression of unlawful games, it is constantly particularised and strictly prohibited.

Supposing the play to be fair on either side, the chances upon the dice are equal to both parties; and the professed gamblers being well aware of this, will not trust to the determination of fortune, but have recourse to many nefarious arts to circumvent the unwary; hence we hear of loaded dice, and dice of the high cut. The former are dice made heavier on one side than the other by the insertion of a small portion of lead; and the latter may be known by the following anecdote in an anonymous MS. written about the reign of James I., and preserved in the Harleian Collection.2 "Sir William Herbert, playing at dice with another gentleman, there rose some questions about a cast. Sir William's antagonist declared it was a four and a five; he as positively insisted that it was a five and six; the other then swore, with a bitter imprecation, that it was as he had said: Sir William then replied, Thou art a perjured knave; for give me a sixpence, and if there be a four upon the dice, I will return you a thousand pounds;' at which the other was presently abashed, for indeed the dice were false, and of a high cut, without a four." The dice are usually made of bone or ivory, but sometimes of silver, and probably of other metals. The wife of the unfortunate Arden of Feversham, sent to Mosbie, her paramour, a pair of silver dice, in order to reconcile

"Nec ludant ad aleas vel taxillos." Decret. Concil. Vigorn. A. D. 1240, directed to the clergy.

No. 6395, Art. 69.

"As false as dicers' oaths," is a proverbial expression, and used by Shakspeare la Hamlet, act iii. scene 4.