play was predominant among the highest classes.

Genius and abilities of the highest order became its votaries; and the very framers of the laws against gambling were the first to fall under the temptation of their breach! The spirit of gambling pervaded every inferior order of society. The gentleman was a slave to its indulgence; the merchant and the mechanic were the dupes of its imaginary prospects; it engrossed the citizen and occupied the rustic. Town and country became a prey to its despotism. There was scarcely an obscure village to be found wherein this bewitching basilisk did not exercise its powers of fascination and destruction.

Gaming in England became rather a science than an amusement of social intercourse. The `doctrine of chances' was studied with an assiduity that would have done honour to better subjects; and calculations were made on arithmetical and geometrical principles, to determine the degrees of probability attendant on games of mixed skill and chance, or even on the fortuitous throws of dice. Of course, in spite of all calculations, there were miserable failures--frightful losses. The polite gamester, like the savage, did not scruple to hazard the dearest interests of his family, or to bring his wife and children to poverty, misery, and ruin. He could not give these over in liquidation of a gambling debt; indeed, nobody would, probably, have them at a gift; and yet there were instances in which the honour of a wife was the stake of the infernal game! . . . . Well might the Emperor Justinian exclaim,--`Can we call _PLAY_ that which causes crime?'[14]

[14] Quis enim ludos appellet eos, ex quibus crimina oriuntur?--_De Concept. Digest_. II. lib. iv. Sec. 9.

CHAPTER II.

GAMBLING AMONG THE ANCIENT HINDOOS.--A HINDOO LEGEND AND ITS MODERN PARALLEL.

The recent great contribution to the history of India, published by Mr Wheeler,[15] gives a complete insight into this interesting topic; and this passage of the ancient Sanskrit epic forms one of the most wonderful and thrilling scenes in that most acceptable publication.

[15] The History of India from the Earliest Ages. By J. Talboys Wheeler. Vol. I.--The Vedic Period and the Maha Bharata.

As Mr Wheeler observes, the specialties of Hindoo gambling are worthy of some attention. The passion for play, which has ever been the vice of warriors in times of peace, becomes a madness amidst the lassitude of a tropical climate; and more than one Hindoo legend has been preserved of Rajas playing together for days, until the wretched loser has been deprived of everything he possessed and reduced to the condition of an exile or a slave.

But gambling amongst the Hindoos does not appear to have been altogether dependent upon chance. The ancient Hindoo dice, known by the name of coupun, are almost precisely similar to the modern dice, being thrown out of a box; but the practice of loading is plainly alluded to, and some skill seems to have been occasionally exercised in the rattling of the dice-box. In the more modern game, known by the name of pasha, the dice are not cubic, but oblong; and they are thrown from the hand either direct upon the ground, or against a post or board, which will break the fall, and render the result more a matter of chance.

The great gambling match of the Hindoo epic was the result of a conspiracy to ruin Yudhishthira, a successful warrior, the representative of a mighty family--the Pandavas, who were incessantly pursued by the envy of the Kauravas, their rivals. The fortunes of the Pandavas were at the height of human prosperity; and at this point the universal conception of an avenging Nemesis that humbles the proud and casts down the mighty, finds full expression in the Hindoo epic. The grandeur of the Pandavas excited the jealousy of Duryodhana, and revived the old feud between the Kauravas and the former.