By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes;
Besides the lottery of my destiny
Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.”
The prevalence of lotteries, too, seems to be intimated by the Clown in All’s Well that Ends Well (act i. sc. 3, l. 73, vol. iii. p. 123), when he repeats the song,—
“Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
There’s yet one good in ten;”
and the Countess reproving him says,—
“What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.
Clo. One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o’ the song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we’d find no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson: one in ten, quoth a’! an’ we might have a good woman born but one every blazing star, or at an earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out, ere a’ pluck one.”