investiture, in fact, of the ward in his legal right as heir to his
parents' property. This court was under the conduct of a very few
officers who enriched themselves; and one of the first acts of the House
of Lords, when the great changes were made during the troubles of
Charles I., was to suppress the court altogether. This was done in 1645,
and confirmed by Cromwell in 1656. At the restoration of Charles II. it
was again specially noted as entirely suppressed.]

[Footnote 73: D'Ewes's father lost a manor, which was recovered by the
widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this
loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that
he had purchased that manor with the _interests_ accumulating from the
money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of
that _controversial sin_." This expression shows that even in that age
there were rational political economists. Jeremy Bentham, in his little
treatise on Usury, offers just views, cleared from the indistinct and
partial ones so long prevalent. Jeremy Collier has an admirable Essay on
Usury, vol. iii. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon, that he would
have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns,
because the merchant is best able to afford the highest.]

[Footnote 74: In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, is an amusing
description of the usurer, who binds his clients in "worse bonds and
manacles than the Turk's galley-slaves." And in Decker's "Knights'
Conjuring," 1607, we read of another who "cozen'd young gentlemen of
their land, had acres mortgaged to him by wiseacres for three hundred
pounds, payde in hobby-horses, dogges, bells, and lutestrings; which, if
they had been sold by the drum, or at an outrop (public auction), with
the cry of 'No man better,' would never have yielded L50."]

[Footnote 75: "The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in
Powles," 1603, is the title of a rare tract in the Malone collection,
now in the Bodleian Library. It is a curious picture of the manners of
the day.]

[Footnote 76: Games with cards. Strutt says _Primero_ is one of the most
ancient games known to have been played in England, and he thus
describes it:--"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the
highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which
counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the
same; but the 2, the 3, and the