e so lost at play, that he died in great want and
penury. Since that Mr Ba--, who was a clerk in the Six-Clerks Office,
and well cliented, fell to play, and won by extraordinary fortune two
thousand pieces in ready gold; was not content with that, played on,
lost all he had won, and almost all his own estate; sold his place in
the office, and at last marched off to a foreign plantation, to begin a
new world with the sweat of his brow; for that is commonly the destiny
of a decayed gamester--either to go to some foreign plantation, or to be
preferred to the dignity of a _box-keeper_.

'It is not denied but most gamesters have, at one time or other, a
considerable run of winning, but such is the infatuation of play, I
could never hear of a man that gave over a winner--I mean, to give over
so as never to play again. I am sure it is _rara avis_, for if you once
"break bulk," as they phrase it, you are in again for all. Sir Humphry
Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then playing, as
it is said, _FOR A DEAD HORSE_, did, by happy fortune, recover it again;
then gave over, and wisely too.'(13)

(13) Harleian Misc. ii. 108.

The sequel will show the increase of gambling in our country during the
subsequent reigns, up to a recent period.

Thus, then, the passion of gaming is, and has ever been, universal.
It is said that two Frenchmen could not exist even in a desert without
_QUARRELLING;_ and it is quite certain that no two human beings can be
anywhere without ere long offering to 'bet' upon something. Indolence
and want of employment--'vacuity,' as Dr Johnson would call it--is the
cause of the passion. It arises from a want of habitual employment
in some material and regular line of conduct. Your very innocent
card-parties at home--merely to kill _TIME_ (what a murder!) explains
all the apparent mystery! Something must be substituted to call forth
the natural activity of the mind; and this is in no way more effectually
accomplished, in all indolent pursuits, than by those _EMOTIONS AND
AGITATIONS_ which gambling produces.

Such is the source of the thing in our _NATURE;_ but then comes the
furious hankering after wealth--the desire to have it without _WORKING_
for it--which is the wish of so many of us; and _THIS_ is the source of
that hideous gambling which has produced the contemptible characters and
criminal acts which are the burthen of this volume.

We love play because it satisfies our avarice,--t