[346] "Toutefois sans venir à telles sortes de blasphèmes, nous en trouvons de forts sauvages au langage Italien: dont aucuns semblent plutost sortir de la bouche de diables que d'hommes. Du nombre desquels est un que j'ouy proférer à Rome par un prestre, lequel sera recité en son lieu. Mais on luy peut bien donner pour compagnon un qui fût proféré à Venise par un Italien, non prestre, mais seculier, en jouant aux cartes en la maison d'un ambassadeur du Roy. Ce blasphème est tel: 'Venga 'l cancaro ad lupo.' Quel si grand mal y-a-t-il ici? dira quelqu'un. Le grand mal est en ce que ceci se disoit par une figure, qui s'appelle aposiopese ou retinenca, en lieu de (comme depuis on cogneut) 'Venga 'l cancaro, ad lupo che non manjiò christo quando era agnello.' Or l'appelloit il agnello, ayant esgard à ce qui est dict en S. Jean, 'Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi.'"
[347] The author of 'A Short Essay on the Folly of Gaming,' reprinted from the Dublin Intelligencer, in 1734, speaking of the loss of temper at cards and dice, says: "If any one doubts the truth of this position, I refer him to the Groom-Porter's, and other public tables, where the virtuosos of the gaming science are daily and nightly to be seen. If blasphemy, cursing, swearing, duelling, running of heads against the wall, throwing hats and wigs in the fire, distortions of the countenance, biting of nails, burning of cards, breaking of dice-boxes, can be called a loss of temper, they are to be found there in the highest degree."—He concludes his essay with the following warning: "I shall close these cursory reflections with a useful remark of Plato's, viz. that the Dæmon Theuth was the inventor of Dice; and the vulgar have it by tradition that cards are the Devil's books; therefore I cannot but say that after this information given, if gamesters will not desist, they are undoubtedly at the Devil's devotion."
[348] An Essay upon Gaming, in a Dialogue between Callimachus and Dolomedes. By Jeremy Collier, M.A. 1713.
[349] This title is taken from the 14th verse of the xxxivth Psalm: "Depart from evil, and do good." The names of the speakers, Eldad and Medad, are from Numbers, xi, 26.
[350] Eldad, in replying to this portion of Medad's argument, observes that Play is not to be compared with commerce or trade, which supplies men with things necessary or useful, and that in fair trade both the buyer and the seller are benefited.
[351] Eldad, in answer to this tirade, observes that no blessing can attend the gains of such an unfeeling character, and that his money will go as it has come. Out of a thousand, he says, there is not one who succeeds in such speculations, and that we daily see many reduced to poverty by them. Trade and commerce supplying us with useful articles are to be distinguished from speculations which partake of the nature of gaming.
The following anecdote of a card-playing parson who inopportunely let some cards drop from his sleeve when in church, occurs in 'The Women's Advocate, or the Fifteen real Comforts of Matrimony.'—2d edit. 1683.
"The Parson that loved gaming better than his eyes, made a good use of it when he put up his cards in his gown-sleeve in haste, when the clerk came and told him the last stave was a-singing. 'Tis true, that in the height of his reproving the Parish for their neglect of holy duties, upon the throwing out of his zealous arm, the cards dropt out of his sleeve, and flew about the church. What then? He bid one boy take up a card and asked him what it was,—the boy answers the King of Clubs. Then he bid another boy take up another card. 'What was that?' 'The Knave of Spades.' 'Well,' quo' he, 'now tell me, who made ye?' The boy could not well tell. Quo' he to the next, 'Who redeemed ye?'—that was a harder question. 'Look ye,' quoth the Parson, 'you think this was an accident, and laugh at it; but I did it on purpose to shew you that had you taught your children their catechism, as well as to know their cards, they would have been better provided to answer material questions when they come to church.'"
[353] Mons. Peignot says that Mlle. Le Normand, the celebrated fortune-teller, published in her 'Souvenirs Prophétiques,' Paris, 1814, the same history, but with the name of the hero changed to Richard Middleton. Mlle. Le Normand died at Paris in 1843, aged 72, leaving a fortune, it is said, of 500,000 francs. She had followed the trade of fortune-telling for upwards of forty years; and is said to have been frequently consulted by the Empress Josephine, who was extremely superstitious. A great number of her customers were gamblers, of both sexes. She is said to have been visited both by Napoleon, and by Alexander, Emperor of Russia.